Highlights

Economic Development

• To promote economic development, the Government must be “appropriately proactive”. We must deepen and expand our industries:
  1. We will establish an Economic Development Commission to work on theoverall strategy and policyto enhance our long-termdevelopment from a highlevel, cross-departmental and cross-sectoral perspective.Working Groups on Transportation, Convention and Exhibition Industries and Tourism etc. will be set up
  2. Financial Services: expand our offshore Renminbi business; establish the Financial Services Development Council to explore ways to facilitate the furtherdevelopment of Hong Kong’s financial services industry
  3. Legal Services: Promote Hong Kong’s arbitration and mediation services in the Mainland and abroad. Enhance Hong Kong’s position as a legal services hub in the Asia-Pacific region
     
  4. Shipping Services: develop Hong Kong’s international and high value-added maritime services
     
  5. Promote industries where Hong Kong enjoys clear advantages, such as innovation and technology, and testing and certification
• Set up a new joint working group to enhance the mechanism for the implementation of CEPA. Extend the “early and pilot implementation” approach beyond Guangdong Province to other provinces and municipalitiesin the Pan-Pearl River Delta region
  
• Strengthen communication with, and timely support for, SMEs. Support Hong Kong business associations in establishing sales and promotion venues in the Mainland for building the Hong Kong brand

Housing and Land Supply

• Increasing Supply of Subsidised Housing in Short to Medium Term
  1. As a target, the total supply of public rental housing (PRH) will be at least 100 000 units over the five years starting from 2018
  2. Review and expedite the construction of public housing flats
  3. Set aside a site in Sha Tin for the Hong Kong Housing Society to develop a subsidised housing project. Another site in Sha Tau Kok will also be allocated for rental housing development. Together the two sites will provide about 1 000 units
  4. Examine all projects in the pipeline and increase the plot ratio as appropriate
  5. Combat the abuse of PRH resources. Together with the new flats completed, over 22 000 PRH flats will be available for allocation per year
  6. 2 100 new home ownership scheme (HOS) flats will be offered for pre-sale next year
  7. Four pieces of land originally earmarked for the My Home Purchase Plan will be used for new HOS development
• Increasing Supply of Housing Land in Short to Medium Term
  1. 36 sites, including GIC sites and other Government sites with an area measuring 27 hectares in total, after going through town planning procedures, would be used for housing development, providing about 11 900 residential flats
  2. 13 sites in Green Belt areas, measuring 57 hectares in total, which are devegetated, deserted or formed will be rezoned to residential use to provide some 23 000 units
  3. In reviewing industrial land, a total of 60 hectares can be released for non-industrial uses, providing about 20 000 units
  4. Appropriately increase the development density of unleased or unallocated residential sites
  5. Where the original intended use is no longer required, convert the land for housing development or other uses that meet the more pressing needs in the community as
     soon as possible
  6. Actively consider relaxing or lifting a moratorium, which is an administrative measure, currently in force to restrict the sale of new land or modification to lease in Pok Fu Lam and the Mid-Levels
  7. Take forward the planning for residential development at Kam Tin South West Rail Kam Sheung Road Station and Pat Heung Maintenance Depot, with land of about 33 hectares in total, estimated to provide about 8 700 flats. In addition, engineering studies will be conducted for the adjoining areas totalling about 110 hectares, to identify land for public and private housing development
  8. In the coming four years, the Urban Renewal Authority will supply approximately a total of 4.9 hectares of land to provide about 4 700 flats
  9. Over the past three years, the Town Planning Board hasapproved many planning applications for residential development estimated to provide over 45 000 flats
  10. Expedite four development projects, including the former Diamond Hill Squatter Areas and former Cha Kwo Ling Kaolin Mine, to provide about 27 hectares of residential land for the construction of about 15 000 public and private residential units
• Take forward large-scale new development projectsas soon as possible to increase long term land supply, including the North East New Territories New Development
  Areas, the Hung Shui Kiu New Development Area, developing the New Territories North, and reclaiming on an appropriate scale outside Victoria Harbour
  
• Set up a Harbourfront Authority to create a Victoria harbourfront for the people

A Caring Society and a Home to the People

• The Commission on Poverty will develop poverty alleviation policies; set a poverty line and thoroughly investigate the causes of poverty so that our poverty alleviation efforts can be more effective
• Launch the Pilot Scheme on Community Care Service Voucher for the Elderly and adopt the “money follows the user” approach so that eligible elderly may choose the services that suit their individual needs
  
• From now to 2014-15, the Social Welfare Department will provide over 1 700 new subsidised residential care places for the elderly. The Hospital Authority will provide 130 additional convalescent beds
  
• Allocate about $900 million under the Lotteries Fund to enhance the facilities and safety of subvented elderly centres over six years
  
• Increase job attachment allowances and wage subsidy under the On the Job Training Programme for People with Disabilities and the Sunnyway – On the Job Training Programme for Young People with Disabilities to promote the employment of persons with disabilities
  
• Abolish the foreign domestic helpers levy to ease the burden on families employing foreign domestic helpers

Environmental Protection and Conservation

• Strive to improve air quality on all fronts aiming to broadly achieve the new air quality objectives by 2020
  
• Set aside $10 billion as subsidies to owners of over 80 000 heavily polluting pre-Euro and Euro I to III diesel commercial vehicles in order to progressively phase out these vehicles
  having regard to their pollution level. The scheme will significantly reduce the overall emission of particulates and nitrogen oxides by 80% and 30% respectively
  
• Help franchised buses, taxis and minibuses reduce emissions
  
• Encourage ocean-going vessels at berth to switch to lowsulphurdiesel. Consider bringing in new legislation
  
• Inject $5 billion into the Environment and Conservation Fund so that investment returns of the fund can provide long-term and sustained support for green actions initiated by the community
  
• Set up a $500 million sustainable fisheries development fund to help fishermen adopt a sustainable and high value-added operation mode

Education

• Set up a committee to examine the feasibility of free kindergarten education. To help kindergartens under the Pre-primary Education Voucher Scheme improve their school premises and teaching facilities, an additional one-off grant will be provided to them in the 2013/14 school year for conducting minor improvement works and procuring learning resources and so on
• Strengthen our support for students with special educational needs. Starting from the 2013/14 school year, the ceiling of the annual Learning Support Grant will be raised to $1.5million per school

Healthcare

• The Hospital Authority will add about 150 acute patient beds, expand the application of drugs listed in its Drug Formulary, reduce the wastage of healthcare workers and improve the Accident and Emergency services
• Pursue actively the construction of Tin Shui Wai Hospital and construct the Centre of Excellence in Paediatrics. Expand and redevelop a number of hospitals to ensure that hospital facilities can meet public needs
  
• Set up a steering committee to conduct a comprehensive review of the operation of the Hospital Authority to explore viable measures for enhancing the cost-effectiveness and quality of its services
  
• Set up the Chinese Medicine Development Committee to further the development of the Chinese medicine industry

Arts and Culture, Creativity and Sports

• Additional resources allocated to the Hong Kong Arts Development Council to provide young artists with creative space in an industrial building in Wong Chuk Hang at concessionary rental rates
  
• Additional funding of $150 million to strengthen the training of arts administrators with different levels of experience in the next five years
  
• CreateSmart Initiative will continue to support initiatives to
  facilitate the development of creative industries. To step up our efforts, we will inject an additional $300 million into the CreateSmart Initiative
  
• Planning of the Multi-purpose Sports Complex at Kai Tak is a priority. We will ensure that it meets the needs of the sports sector and the wider community as far as possible

District Administration

• The legislation will be amended as soon as possible to abolish all District Council appointed seats from 2016 onwards
  
• A one-off grant of $1.8 billion in total will be earmarked for District Councils to carry out signature projects. An additional $20.8 million per year will be provided for community involvement programmes to enhance the work of District Councils in promoting arts and cultural activities at the district level