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Does Chen Maobo really understand the two major contradictions in Hong Kong?

2021-07-26T10:48:15.137Z


The Financial Secretary, Chen Maobo, published a blog on Sunday (25th), describing his visit to Sham Shui Po District to visit people living in "subdivided housing" and public housing. He also pointed out that Hong Kong must set the goal of "solving substandard housing" and believed that locally


The Financial Secretary, Chen Maobo, published a blog on Sunday (25th), describing his visit to Sham Shui Po District to visit people living in "subdivided housing" and public housing. He also pointed out that Hong Kong must set the goal of "solving substandard housing" and believed that Behind the local problems of "expensive housing, difficult housing, and detailed housing" are the two major contradictions between "income disparity between rich and poor" and "asset disparity between rich and poor". Therefore, it is judged that the handling of land and housing issues is an economic issue and a livelihood issue. It is also a major political issue."


Although the Chief Secretary emphasized in this blog that the land and housing issues "have been plagued by Hong Kong society," this is actually the first time he mentioned the term "subdivided housing" for four and a half years in his essay. "The implementation of the "two systems" does not mean that Hong Kong has a serious disparity between the rich and the poor. It is reasonable. However, he only mentioned the "disparity between the rich and the poor" at the beginning of this year. "Issue" adopts a wait-and-see attitude.

Chen Maobo went to Sham Shui Po District to visit the citizens living in sub-divided housing and the elderly living in public housing.

(Chen Maobo's Blog)

Why are we only dealing with the subdivided housing until now?

It can be seen that Chen Maobo has only recently regarded ending the housing problem and the disparity between the rich and the poor as his top priority, which also means that he has not actively helped the people out of poverty in the past.

Obviously "subdivided housing" tenants have been suffering for many years, but only now did senior government officials realize that they must deal with the problems of "expensive housing, difficult housing, and detailed housing." The opportunity is estimated to be no more than a speech by the director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, Xia Baolong. urge.

Apart from being disappointed and angry about this, the citizens can only lament that their "off the ground" is even worse than that of the central officials in Beijing.

Moreover, it is not a novelty for the current government accountable officials to visit "subdivided housing" households. Chen Maobo's colleague and Secretary for Transport and Housing, Chen Fan, did it as soon as he took office in 2017, and Chief Executive Carrie Lam also arrived in February last year. Sham Shui Po District did the same thing. Afterwards, they all expressed feelings about the living environment of the residents. However, at the same time, the number of "subdivided houses" increased unabated from 2016 to 2020, from 91,800 households. To 100.9 million households, it can be seen that the pain of visiting the district and the choking of the officials did not prevent the "subdivided houses" from spreading.

Especially as far as Chen Maobo is concerned, when he was an official, he was involved in the family's purchase of "subdivided houses" and the turmoil of profit-making on farmland in the New Territories, which severely affected his prestige as the director of the Development Bureau.

The two cases he involved just reflected the wealthy Hong Kong people's love for investment in property land, and even high-ranking officials' families are not immune to this. However, if the economy is to continue to be dominated by the real estate industry, the government must dare to challenge the obstacles of these vested interests.

If Chen Maobo really intends to act on his words, then he must do something for the remainder of his tenure before he can explain to the residents of subdivided housing, the general public and the central government. At the very least, he must be in the Land Supply Steering Committee under his leadership. Strengthen the coordination of the land search work of various policy bureaus.

Xia Baolong pointed out that the governors of the SAR need to break through various interest barriers that restrict Hong Kong's economic development and improvement of people's livelihood, and effectively solve prominent problems such as housing, employment, medical care, and the disparity between the rich and the poor.

(Profile picture)

The disparity between the rich and the poor is not only reflected in housing

Finally, I have to mention that when he resorted to housing the reasons for the disparity in income and assets in Hong Kong, he seemed to have overlooked the ineffectiveness of the government's resource allocation mechanism.

The disparity between the rich and the poor is not only caused by the difference in housing expenses, but also from the unfair distribution of primary and secondary income.

In the middle of this month, "21st Century Capital" author Piketty and postdoctoral researcher Yang Li released a research report on Hong Kong's income and wealth inequality. They found that the 1% of Hong Kong people with the highest income from 1981 to 2018 accounted for local income. The ratio rose from 10.7% to 16.3%, while the proportion of the bottom half of the income fell from 18.7% to 11.6%, which means that the income of a small group of people in the upper class is more than the income of the bottom half.

In recent years, many methods have been proposed to narrow the distribution disparity, including raising the minimum wage, increasing taxes on the wealthy, setting up capital gains tax, setting up universal retirement protection, etc., but the Secretary and his accountability team have been cold-hearted for a long time.

In any case, Chen Maobo reflected on the chaos of "subdivided housing" and agreed that reducing housing expenditure can ease the disparity between the rich and the poor is a good thing, but the reflection needs to be more thorough and must be turned into action.

The fight against the disparity between the rich and the poor is of course related to land and housing, as well as welfare and taxation. He needs to make other secretary and directors so aware that he will seriously launch a solution at the end of his term. He must implement the increase in land supply and reform the fiscal and taxation policies. , To make up for the past nine years of negligence in governance.

Political leaders need to talk about suggestions and solve problems

Source: hk1

All news articles on 2021-07-26

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