Hong Kong must quantify the economic and livelihood goals

November 20, Ruishiluosang Management Institute (IMD) released “2018 Global Talent rankings”, ranking in about 63 countries to train and attract talent in Hong Kong dropped 18 of 12 last year, lost the top spot in Asia , and then ahead of Singapore. Hong Kong’s rankings in “investment and development of talents”, “attracting and retaining talents” and “talent readiness” all fell. According to the report, Hong Kong is doing a good job of attracting overseas professionals to maintain a top talent pool. However, public education investment is lagging behind, and science education, language ability and education system are far less than Singapore. Public education expenditure only accounts for 3.3 GDP. %, ranked 56th in the world rankings. Together with this time, Singapore has outperformed Hong Kong three times in the past five years, while Hong Kong has taken the lead in 2016 and 2017.

Hong Kong talents are behind

In the past decade or two, the rankings of international institutions on global economic freedom, competitiveness, and talents have always touched the community in Hong Kong. They have always been highly concerned by the government, with particular emphasis on the rise and fall of Hong Kong and Singapore in various rankings. These are all should be. However, from the perspective of maintaining advantages, overcoming or compensating for disadvantages, it is more important for the government to improve the level of governance. One of the measures to improve the level of governance is to set a quantitative target for the economic and livelihood of Hong Kong and to strive for it.

For example, after the publication of the 2018 World Talent Rankings by the Lausanne School of Management in Switzerland, Hong Kong has media analysis of the reasons for the decline in Hong Kong’s rankings, saying that Hong Kong has high prices and ranks three in the world’s 63 countries or regions. This is a Negative factors that cannot be underestimated. One of the important factors in the high living index in Hong Kong is the high property prices and high rents. At present, Hong Kong’s financial sector attracts foreign professionals. Most of them can only accommodate 600 square feet of Taikoo Shing units. If they work in Singapore, they can enjoy the treatment of 2,000 square feet of large houses or villas.

Therefore, the SAR Government should consider whether it is possible to attract a batch of innovative high-tech talents in the form of subsidized rent by the government to promote the development of Hong Kong. How many people are attracted to the goal? How much does the public pension need to subsidize? These need to be quantified.

Here are some more examples:

Poverty rate rises

Just the day before the publication of the 2018 World Talent Rankings by the Lausanne School of Management in Switzerland, on November 19th, the SAR government announced the poverty situation in Hong Kong in 2017. 2017 Hong Kong impoverished population of 1.377 million, compared to more than 25,000 in 2016, a new high since 2009; poverty rate was 20.1%, compared with the previous year rose 0.2 percent. Based on the estimated population of 7.41 million in Hong Kong in 2017, one in 5.4 people is poor. After the intervention of the constant cash policy such as CSSA and the fruit grant, the number of poor people was reduced to 1.009 million. Since 2012, the million-deno barrier has been broken again. The poverty rate is 14.7% as much as 2016. Elderly poverty rate slightly improved cash after intervention policy in 2016 elderly poverty rate fell to 31.6% in 2017, 30.5%, falling back to 2013 levels, but still more than the poor elderly 32,016 years 340,000. After the cash policy intervention, the child poverty rate rose by 0.3 percentage points. The number of working poor is 480,000, and the poverty rate is 8.1%, up 1 percentage point.

I agree with the Basic Judgment of the Chief Secretary for Administration that the above information has rebounded, but the overall situation is stable. The problem is that the government’s goal is to gradually reduce the number of poor people, especially to prevent the poor from becoming a generation. Therefore, the current government should set various quantitative targets for poverty reduction for the rest of the term, such as: to 2022 in the current term of the government, how much poverty will be reduced in Hong Kong, where will the poverty rate be controlled, and the poverty rate of the elderly, In particular, the child poverty rate will be controlled separately.

Formulating quantitative targets for economic and livelihood

Another need for the government to set quantitative targets is to reduce the average waiting time for public housing applications. October 10, pointed out that the Chief Executive in his Policy Address in 2018: “At present, more than 150,000 families and single elderly people on the waiting list for public housing, their average waiting time of up to 53 years.” November 12, Hong Kong The Housing Authority announced that the average waiting time for applications for public housing has increased to 5.5 years.

The first question that the Government needs to conduct an in-depth review is that the average waiting time for applications for public housing in previous administrations will be reduced to a three-year quantitative target. Why is it not only impossible to achieve, but rather longer? After clarifying the crux of the problem, re-submit the quantitative goal of gradually reducing the average waiting time for public housing in phases.

Not all economic and livelihood issues are suitable for quantitative purposes. However, the main and even the vast majority of economic and livelihood issues can and should be quantified. The formulation of quantitative targets is conducive to the efforts of various relevant departments of the Government to facilitate the efforts of the community of Hong Kong to focus on economic development and improvement of people’s livelihood.

The fact is that the Chief Executive’s 2018 Policy Address proposes that “Tomorrow’s Vision” will include a number of quantitative targets, such as how many hectares to reclamation and how many Hong Kong residents will provide new housing. The purpose of this article is to hope that the government will promote the good measures already taken to more policies.