Hong Kong to hold press conference on retail green bond issue

Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-poChan Mo-po will hold a press conference on the issue of retail green bond in Hong Kong on February 15, 2022. Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-poChan Mo-po said in his blog on Sunday that the PHOTO HKSASR GOVERNMENT lays a solid foundation for the development of the city's digital economy.

After the first phase of distribution back in April, the second batch of HK $5,000 $637 consumption vouchers will be disbursed this summer, he added.

Since the launch of the voucher program last year, about 6.6 million consumer accounts and around 130,000 merchant accounts have started using stored-value services.

The finance chief said data-driven consumption vouchers can give digital operations from the beginning of the transaction, which provides necessary and favorable conditions for businesses to digitalization progress in operations and management.

As long as we grasp the opportunity brought by this data-driven application, we can still find new ground and find new growth points even if the business environment is facing headwinds, Chan said.

In April, retail sales of the city fell by 11.7 percent year-on-year. The total monthly sales value climbed to HK $30 billion, with sales of electrical appliances and other durable goods rising by more than 40 percent.

Chan said online sales continued to perform well despite a decline of about 3 percent in total retail sales in the first four months of the year as a result of the fifth wave of COVID- 19 outbreak.

In the same period, the city's online sales value topped HK $11 billion, up 36 percent from a year ago.

The financial secretary said that it accounted for nearly 10 percent of retail sales, more than 7 percent in the same period last year.

HK hopes that the HK $5,000 vouchers will boost its economic recovery.