Policy Address
6. In light of this development, I announced early last month the postponement of the delivery of this year’s Policy Address to allow more time for discussion with the relevant Central authorities as well as the Guangdong Provincial Government on policy initiatives that will support Hong Kong’s development and enhance the community’s confidence in the future. I led a government delegation to Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen from 3 to 7 November for in-depth exchanges with the relevant Mainland authorities and received very positive feedback. At our meeting with Mr Han Zheng, Vice Premier of the State Council, he remarked that “the Central Government will fully support whatever measure that is conducive to maintaining the long-term prosperity and stability of Hong Kong, improving the well-being of Hong Kong people, and promoting greater integration of Hong Kong into the overall development of the country”.
7. I will now give a brief account of the results achieved during my visit to Beijing, and will explain further under the relevant policy areas later.
- On promoting the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), the Central Government supports the full implementation, by the end of this year, of the 24 policy measures that have been approved in principle by the Leading Group for the Development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. In addition to the measures rolled out earlier such as tax concessions, facilitation of property purchase, support for young entrepreneurs, cross-boundary remittance of science and technology funding and liberalisation of legal and construction professional services, further measures to be introduced shortly include permitting the use of Hong Kong-registered drugs and common medical devices in designated Hong Kong-owned healthcare institutions in the Mainland cities of the GBA, relaxing the limitation on exporting Mainland human genetic resources to Hong Kong for research purposes, facilitating Hong Kong private cars travelling to Guangdong via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (HZMB), and expediting the implementation of the cross-boundary wealth management connect scheme.
