(Fighting New Coronary Pneumonia) Chen Maobo: Hong Kong's economy may be under greater pressure due to repeated epidemics in the third quarter
China News Service, Hong Kong, August 2 - The Financial Secretary of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, Chen Maobo, published a blog on August 2, stating that since July, Hong Kong's new crown pneumonia epidemic has been repeated, and the economy may be under greater pressure in the third quarter.
Chen Maobo thanked the central government for its full support to Hong Kong in terms of personnel, materials and epidemic prevention. He said that whether it is building a shelter hospital, building a new temporary hospital, and accepting patients, or assisting in large-scale nucleic acid testing, these will help Hong Kong control the epidemic as soon as possible. Epidemic control and epidemic prevention strategies and work in the Mainland have achieved remarkable results. People have resumed their daily lives and have maintained a high degree of vigilance to continue epidemic prevention. Hong Kong needs to learn from these useful experiences to effectively control the epidemic as early as possible.
Chen Maobo believes that there is a priority for any job, and now the epidemic control is the first, while protecting the people's livelihood and stabilizing the economy. Faced with the current difficulties, the SAR government will study how to provide support as much as possible. However, financial resources are always limited, and endless government assistance and relief cannot be a long-term solution, let alone a solution to the problem.
Chen Maobo said that in order to protect people's livelihood and stabilize the economy, the first priority is to control the epidemic and clear cases so that citizens can resume their normal lives and travel, and then the local economy can regain its vitality and momentum. If Hong Kong can manage the epidemic well, it can use the "travel bubble" arrangement to allow Hong Kong residents with health codes to travel to the Mainland and Macau for business and travel, and allow business and tourists from the Mainland and Macau to come to Hong Kong. This will be able to resume business activities as quickly as possible, and help industries such as tourism, retail and catering and related wage earners increase their income.
He pointed out that in the face of the pandemic of the century, no response is easy. Any work that is conducive to epidemic control and epidemic prevention should not be hindered by opinions and political disputes. The virus will not be wiped out by political disputes, but will only become extinct because there is no space to spread. I hope that the society will temporarily lower its differences and unite efforts to control the epidemic. (Finish)