Hong Kong’s deficit: analysts offer fixes for city’s snowballing debt

Industry leaders call for bond issuances, taxes and selling smaller land parcels to tackle debt

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The Hong Kong government has projected a ballooning deficit. Photo: Dickson Lee

Published: 8:30am, 2 Jan 2025

Hong Kong can address its multibillion-dollar deficit by issuing bonds, taxing non-locals on digital activities, casting a wider tax net and breaking down land parcel sales into smaller pieces to attract investors, analysts have said.

With Hong Kong’s deficit snowballing to about HK$100 billion (US$12.8 billion) in the 2024-25 financial year, industry leaders have been racing to offer solutions to help the government boost income and rein in expenses.

The Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, the city’s largest business chamber, urged the government to explore new revenue streams to achieve a fiscal balance and fund important infrastructure projects that would bring long-term benefits.

“We hope the economy will pick up with the Hong Kong government and mainland’s efforts to stimulate growth, but this will take time. The government can try to tighten its belt, but we are in favour of investing for our future,” CEO Patrick Yeung Wai-tim said.

The chamber advised authorities to raise revenue by issuing bonds to finance long-term investments and taxing non-local digital service suppliers.

“We would recommend that the government use bond issuance to fund long-term investments rather than recurrent expenditure,” it said.