Hong Kong Governemnt's response to COVID-19

The Government has issued a virtual booklet setting out the package of Government measures to support individuals and businesses affected by COVID-19. Please click the link below to view the booklet.

Download Here 

Employment Support

• Introducing HK$81 billion Employment Support Scheme
• Government to pay 1.5 million workers 50 percent of their wages, at a maximum of HK$9, 000 a month. The scheme will last six months. First payout to come no later than June 2020
• Creating 30,000 jobs in the coming two years
• An HK$800 million scheme to let workers learn new skills or let businesses apply more technology
• SME Financing Guarantee Scheme to be enhanced, raising the maximum loan amount per enterprise
• An additional annual funding of $30 million to enhance Labour Department employment programmes, including raising ceiling of on-the-job training allowance
• Providing $2.5 billion to the Employees Retraining Board to enhance the Love Upgrading Special Scheme to increase the maximum monthly allowance of trainees to $5,800
• Allocating $200 million to the Construction Industry Council for training allowances for workers, and subsidising SME contractors and registered subcontractors with a ceiling of $20,000 each

Tax

• Reducing salaries tax and tax under personal assessment for 2019-2020 assessment year by 100%, subject to a ceiling of $20,000
• Reducing profits tax for 2019-20 assessment year by 100%, subject to a ceiling of $20,000 - Waiving rates for non-domestic properties for 2020-21, subject to a ceiling of $5,000 per quarter in first two quarters and $1,500 per quarter for remaining two quarters
• Waiving business registration fees for 2020-21
• Waiving registration fees for company annual returns for 2 years
• For taxpayers with tax representatives, the deadline for submission of 2019/20 Profits Tax Return for accounting period ended between 1 April 2019 to 30 November 2019 is extended to 30 June 2020. The normal submission deadline is 30 April.
• The Inland Revenue Department has granted extension to 1 June 2020 for Hong Kong entities of reportable groups to file country-by-country notifications for accounting period ended between 31 December 2019 to 29 February 2020. The normal filing deadline is 3 months after the end of the relevant accounting period.

Government Aid

• HK$21 billion has been set aside for 16 types of sectors and businesses hit especially hard, from aviation to smaller ventures such as education and tutorial centres and school bus operators.
• The Government will set up a $30 billion Anti-epidemic Fund providing additional resources to strengthen the territorial-wide anti-epidemic work and will render support to the affected industries and employees. Funding approval was given by the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council on February 21.

Others

• $10,000 cash payout to Hong Kong permanent residents aged 18 or above
• A concessionary low-interest loan up to $2 million with a 100% government guarantee for enterprises, which will be open for application for 6 months, with repayment period up to 3 years
• The Hong Kong Monetary Authority has reduced the countercyclical capital buffer for Hong Kong from 2.0% to 1.0% to encourage the banking sector to continue supporting the financing need of SMEs in Hong Kong.

Find more in our Hong Kong Budget 2020/21 newsletter.