Message from Legislative Councillor (Functional
Constituency Representative for Wholesale & Retail)
立法會議員之話 批發及零售界功能組別代表
Hon. Peter Shiu
邵家輝先生
At the time of writing this article, the Legislative Council is still scrutinizing
the Appropriation Bill 2017, that is, the Budget. Same as previous years, a
few LegCo Members have been filibustering by prolonged speech, repeated
requests of the quorum counting and moving numerous amendments, for
their political purposes. Even so, it is believed the Budget can be approved by
the end of May so that public services will not be affected.
On the whole, I consider the Budget acceptable and will vote for it as well.
I hope all the proposed policies and resources beneficial to our society and
economy can be put in place at the earliest possible date. Of course, nothing
is prefect and the Budget is no exception. As a matter of fact, there are
some aspects that can be improved, and thus I have striven to raise them
out in LegCo meeting in order to help the government make improvements
constantly.
The estimation of revenue and expenditure has been the most disputable part
in the Budget over the years. The former and incumbent Financial Secretary
have either overestimated deficits or underestimated surpluses, leading to a
continued huge surplus with “flooding” coffer. Currently, we have more than
HK$950 billion in Fiscal Reserves and over HK$3 trillion in Exchange Fund
which is even more than the counterparts of many larger advanced economies.
Having surplus year after year is certainly good for individual or household but
it may not be the case for the government. Rather, it is a hint to ponder on.
Nowadays in Hong Kong, we are facing social problems on housing,
health care and youth employment, etc.; and our economy is wandering at
bottleneck, in which only few industries can sustain to develop with growth.
Given on the one hand the government has such an abundant reserve while
on the other there exist a host of various social and economic problems, we
can’t help but question if their finance management is too conservative to the
extent that some more works should have been done.
執筆之時，立法會仍在審議《
2017
年撥款
條例草案》，亦即是《財政預算案》。一如
往年，有少數議員利用不斷發言、點算人數
和提出修正案來「拉布」，以達到其政治目
的，但一般相信預算案最終仍可在五月底前
通過，公共服務不致受影響。
整體而言，我認為這份預算案是可以接受
的，故亦會投下支持票，希望讓各項惠及社
會經濟的政策和資源早日落到實處。當然，
凡事沒有完美，預算案亦不例外，其中確實
仍有一些可改善之處，所以我在會議上亦
盡本份發言指出問題，希望有助政府不斷改
進。
多年來，預算案最為人爭議的，莫過於對財
政收支的估算。歷任的財政司司長不是高估
赤字，就是低估盈餘，以致連年有鉅額盈
餘，庫房「水浸」。現時財政儲備已超過
9,500
億元，外匯基金資產也達三萬億元以
上，比很多規模更大的先進經濟體系的資產
還要多。
對於個人或家庭來說，年年有餘固然是好，
惟政府長年有鉅額盈餘，則有深思的必要。
當前香港面對房屋、醫療、青年就業等問
題，經濟方面亦處於樽頸位，只有少數行業
可以持續發展。試想，這邊廂財政豐裕，那
邊廂卻有種種社會經濟問題亟待解決，這是
否就反映了政府的理財手法過於保守，有些
工作應做而未做？
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