YOUTH URBAN SPORTS VENUE SET

The Government will promote urban sports that are popular among the youth, Financial Secretary Paul Chan announced in his 2023-24 Budget today.

Mr Chan noted that the Culture, Sports & Tourism Bureau is examining the conversion of some underutilised floors of the Kwun Chung Municipal Services Building into an urban sports centre, so as to provide a suitable venue for activities such as sport climbing and skateboarding. 

Pointing out that vocational and professional education and training (VPET) has always provided diversified and flexible education pathways for young people, the finance chief said that starting from the 2023-24 academic year, the Vocational Training Council will launch a two‑year pilot project enabling secondary school students to have early exposure to VPET, helping them explore their interests.

The Government will launch the Diploma of Applied Education Programme on a regular basis in the same academic year in place of the existing Diploma Yi Jin Programme.

Inclusive society

Mr Chan proposed to set aside $100 million to strengthen support for women's development and the related tasks, which include helping women take up different roles in the job market, providing them with training on child and elderly care, promoting work and family life balance as well as mental health, and organising sharing and learning activities.

To enhance support for pre-school children with special needs, Mr Chan suggested to step up support for these children by allocating additional resources to regularise tier 1 support services and extend them to cover nearly 900 pre‑primary institutions.

He said: “Such services will also be integrated with on‑site pre‑school rehabilitation services to offer comprehensive and timely assistance to pre‑school children with different levels of special needs through inter‑disciplinary service teams under a school‑based and integrated approach. The measures will incur an annual recurrent expenditure of about $174 million.”

The Government will regularise schemes which support the elderly and carers.

The Pilot Scheme on Community Care Service Voucher for the Elderly will be regularised in the third quarter of this year, increasing the number of beneficiaries to 12,000 in 2025‑26, involving an annual recurrent expenditure of about $900 million. 

Two financial assistance schemes for carers from low-income families will be regularised. The monthly allowance amount will be raised from October this year, involving an annual expenditure of about $430 million. 

To motivate further employment of elderly employees, Mr Chan proposed to increase the tax deduction for the Mandatory Provident Fund voluntary contributions made by employers for their employees aged 65 or above, from the current 100% to 200% in respect of such expenditure.

To encourage the provision of more quality private residential care homes for seniors, the finance chief announced that upon review, the Government has decided that in addition to continuing to exempt the gross floor area (GFA) of these private residential care homes for the elderly (RCHEs) from payment of premium, it will raise the GFA of RCHEs that can be exempted in each development project. 

“Furthermore, we propose to exempt such GFA from the calculation of the maximum GFA of the relevant projects. It is hoped that these enhanced measures will increase the supply of quality private RCHEs.”

The Development Bureau and the Labour & Welfare Bureau will formulate a similar scheme for residential care homes for people with disabilities.

In addition, the Government plans to waive the water fee deposit and charge for providing a separate water meter installed in eligible subdivided units.

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