港府欲借預算案驅散佔中陰霾

HONG KONG — Two months after protesters were cleared from the streets, the Hong Kong government announced on Wednesday a budget full of tax breaks and other handouts to provide economic support to the lower and middle classes, as well as businesses that it said had been disrupted by 11 weeks of demonstrations.

香港——週三，在街頭的抗議者被清場兩個月後，香港政府宣佈了一份包含大量賦稅減免及其他紓緩措施的預算案，以便爲中低階層和一些企業提供經濟支持。政府稱，這些企業被持續了11周的示威所擾亂。

“The Occupy movement affected tourism, hotel, catering, retail and transport industries,” John Tsang, the city’s financial secretary, said in his budget speech, adding that the initiatives would help “offset the impact on economic confidence.”

“佔領行動對旅遊、酒店、飲食、零售和運輸等行業造成不同程度的影響，”香港政府財政司司長曾俊華(John Tsang)在預算案發言中說，並接着表示相關措施將有助於“重建信心”。

Hong Kong’s widening wealth gap and increasingly unaffordable housing emerged as catalysts for last year’s democracy protests, and Mr. Tsang offered several measures intended to help address these issues.

香港日漸擴大的貧富差距和越來越難以承受的房價，成了去年民主抗議的催化劑。曾俊華提出了幾項旨在幫助解決這些問題的措施。

He announced one-time items that included tax breaks on salaries and profits; increased funding for small and medium-size companies; increased welfare payments for the poor and the elderly; and a one-month rent waiver for low-income tenants of public housing.

他宣佈了一些一次性的措施，包括針對薪俸和利潤的稅收減免、增加對中小型公司的資助、提高對窮困人口和老人的福利救濟，以及減免公租房低收入租戶一個月的房租。

He also increased the permitted tax deduction for raising children, a recurrent measure, and estimated the cost of all these handouts at 34 billion Hong Kong dollars, or $4.4 billion.

他還增加了子女免稅額，這是一個常見的措施。他預計，所有這些紓緩措施的成本爲340億港幣。

Mr. Tsang also announced measures worth 290 million dollars that he said were intended to help Hong Kong recover from the effects of the Occupy protests.

曾俊華還宣佈了一項價值2.9億美元的措施，旨在幫助香港從佔領抗議活動的影響中恢復過來。

Those included license fee waivers for travel agents, hotels, restaurants and taxis and buses, as well as increased spending to promote Hong Kong as a travel destination.

其中包括向旅行社、酒店、餐館、出租車和巴士發放免費牌照，以及增加開支用於宣傳香港作爲旅遊目的地的形象。

But later in his speech, Mr. Tsang noted that tourist arrivals to Hong Kong had increased 12 percent last year, while their total spending rose 9 percent, to more than 350 billion Hong Kong dollars. In October, at the height of the protests, arrivals from mainland China, Hong Kong’s biggest source of tourists, rose 18 percent, according to figures from the tourism board.

但在接下來的發言中，曾俊華指出，香港去年接待的遊客人數增加了12%，遊客總共消費逾3500億港幣，增幅9%。從來自旅遊發展局的數據來看，在去年10月抗議處於高峯期時，中國內地赴港人數增幅18%。中國內地是香港最大的遊客來源地。

The risk to the measures announced on Wednesday and other large government spending programs, like fiscal initiatives to help a rapidly aging population, is that public opposition after the Occupy protests could leave the government hamstrung.

週三宣佈的措施以及其他一些大型政府開支計劃——如旨在幫助迅速老齡化的人口的財政措施——所面臨的風險是，佔領抗議結束後的民衆反對可能會束縛政府的手腳。

“Is the government still going to have the basic consent among the population to draw up and implement economic policies — tackling the aging issue or getting infrastructure done, for example?” said Andrew Colquhoun, head of Asia-Pacific sovereign ratings at Fitch Ratings in Hong Kong. “That’s still an open question, whether that political constraint becomes more binding for them.”

“政府在起草和實施經濟政策時，還能得到民衆起碼的認可嗎，比如解決老齡化問題或建設基礎設施？”惠譽(Fitch Ratings)駐香港亞太區主權評級負責人高翰德(Andrew Colquhoun)說。“政治限制對它們的約束力是否增加了，這還是一個懸而未決的問題。”

Mr. Tsang suggested that this might be the case, expressing frustration with the pace of funding approvals from the local legislature, the Legislative Council, also known as LegCo, which features a minority of directly elected members who are pro-democracy and supported the protests.

曾俊華表示情況可能的確是這樣，他對香港立法機構立法會(Legislative Council)撥款批覆進度表達了不滿。在立法會，支持民主和抗議活動的直選立委屬少數羣體。

“With a number of projects entering their construction peaks, capital works expenditure is expected to maintain at relatively high levels in the next few years,” Mr. Tsang said. “We are, however, concerned about the sluggish progress of deliberation in LegCo since the last session. This has resulted in the mounting of backlog of funding proposals.”

“現時多項工程正處於施工高峯期，預計基本工程開支在往後數年會維持在較高水平，”曾俊華說。“但令人憂慮的是，自上個立法年度至今，立法會審議工程項目的進度緩慢，積壓大量撥款建議。”

Although outlays for social welfare and education are set to rise, a major target of government spending in the coming year will be large-scale infrastructure projects — expenditures that often benefit the wealthy elite, who control the city’s property developers and construction companies.

儘管社會福利和教育開支將增加，未來一年政府開支的重要目標仍將是大型基建項目。這類開支常常會讓富裕的精英受益，他們掌控着香港的房地產開發商和建築公司。

Hong Kong is spending billions of dollars on several megaprojects that have been subject to significant delays and cost overruns. These include nearly $10 billion on a 50-kilometer, or 31-mile, bridge and tunnel to the cities of Macau and Zhuhai, across the mouth of the Pearl River from Hong Kong; $6 billion on a new cluster of theaters and arts venues; $9 billion on a high-speed rail link to Guangzhou, in southern China; and $14 billion on extensions to the local subway system.

香港正在多個大型項目上投入數十、上百億美元的資金。這些項目的進度已嚴重滯後，並且多次超出成本預期。其中包括投資近100億美元建造一條50公里的橋樑和隧道，將香港與澳門以及珠江口對岸的珠海相聯通；投資60億美元建造一批新的劇院和藝術場館；投資90億美元建造一條通向內地南方城市廣州的高鐵；以及投資140億美元延長香港的地鐵系統的項目。

Mr. Tsang said work on a third runway for the Hong Kong International Airport, estimated in 2011 to cost at least $18 billion, could begin next year and finish by 2023, though a final budget has yet to be announced.

曾俊華說，香港國際機場第三條跑道的建設可能於明年開始，2023年竣工，不過仍然沒有宣佈最終的預算。2011年對該項目的成本估計爲至少180億美元。

There is little doubt Hong Kong’s government can afford the largess. Mr. Tsang estimated the budget surplus for the fiscal year that ends on March 31 at 64 billion dollars, up from his estimate of 9 billion dollars a year ago.

毫無疑問，香港政府有能力負擔這些費用。曾俊華估計，截至3月31日的財年，港府的預算盈餘爲640億美元，高於他本人一年前估計的90億美元。

Repeated larger-than-anticipated surpluses have left the government with an embarrassment of riches. Fiscal reserves are now forecast to rise to 856 billion dollars by the end of March 2016, equal to 37 percent of gross domestic product. The reserves could cover 23 months’ worth of government expenditure.

連續多年高於預期的預算盈餘讓港府積累了大量財富。預計香港的財政儲備到2016年3月將增長到8560億美元，相當於GDP的37%。這些儲備可以負擔23個月的政府支出。

That figure does not include excess reserves of 635 billion dollars in the Exchange Fund, which the government set up to backstop the local currency’s peg to the United States dollar and which generates its own large surpluses.

這個數字還不包括外匯基金(Exchange Fund)中儲備的6350億美元，港府設立這一基金是爲了保障港幣與美元掛鉤的做法，與此同時，該基金本身則產生了大量盈餘。

“They are right to a certain extent to be putting money away for a rainy day, rather than just blowing it all in one go, because there’s always been the concern that the tax base here is very narrow,” said Charles Kinsley, a tax partner at KPMG China, based in Hong Kong.

“把錢存起來以備不時之需，而不是一下子花完，這種做法有一定的合理性，因爲一直有人擔心，香港的稅收基數太小，”畢馬威中國(KPMG China)在香港的稅務合夥人甘兆年(Charles Kinsley)說。

Hong Kong’s tax rates are extremely low, at 15 percent for individuals and 16.5 percent for companies. On top of that, only 40 percent of Hong Kong’s work force pays salary tax, while only 10 percent of registered companies pay any tax on profits. Instead, the government relies heavily on profits from land sales and, more recently, temporary taxes on real estate transactions that were intended to cool the property market but have turned into money makers.

香港的稅率非常之低，個人需繳納的稅率爲15%，企業爲16.5%。此外，只有40%的香港勞動者繳納薪俸稅，10%的註冊企業繳納利得稅。政府嚴重依賴土地銷售帶來的收益，以及不久前臨時設立的房地產交易稅。此舉旨在爲房地產市場降溫，卻成了一個主要的收入來源。

Another more recent risk is Hong Kong’s growing ties to mainland China, where economic growth last year declined to its slowest pace in 24 years. Exposure to mainland interests accounted for only 10 percent of Hong Kong banking system assets in 2008, but that figure rose to about 40 percent as of mid-2014.

另一個新近出現的風險是香港與中國內地日益強化的關係。去年，中國內地的經濟增速降到了24年的最低水平。對內地的利率風險敞口僅佔香港銀行系統資產的10%，但這一數字在2014年中期增長到了40%左右。

“Hong Kong is becoming increasingly integrated with the mainland economy, both through trade and financial linkages, which is kind of a double-edged sword,” said Mr. Colquhoun of Fitch.

“通過貿易和金融關聯，香港與內地經濟的整合程度越來越高，這在某種程度上是一把雙刃劍，”惠譽的高翰德說。

“Being plugged into China in the long run is a structural positive and an overall competitive advantage for Hong Kong,” he said. “But in the shorter to medium term, China is going through a structural economic adjustment, and there are some risks in that for Hong Kong.”

“融入中國內地經濟從長期來看是一個結構上的積極因素，能帶來整體上的競爭優勢，”他說。“但從更短期和中期來看，中國正在經歷一次經濟結構調整，這對香港構成了風險。”

Also Wednesday, Hong Kong government data showed that the city’s economy grew 2.3 percent last year, compared with 2013, in line with forecasts. The government expects growth of 1 percent to 3 percent this year, Mr. Tsang said.

同樣是在週三，港府的數據顯示，這座城市的經濟去年較2013年增長了2.3%，與預期相符。曾俊華說，政府預計今年的經濟增幅將在1%到3%。