Departure tax hike to help ease HK's budget deficit: official

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, October 09, 2003

Departure tax hike to help ease HK's budget deficit: official

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The increased air-passenger departure tax, which will take effect earlier next year, will helpease the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government's budget deficit, a senior Hong Kong official said here Wednesday.

The tax will rise from 80 HK dollars (10.3 US dollars) to 120 HK dollars (15.4 dollars) from Jan. 9 next year, so as to generatean additional government revenue of 400 million HK dollars (51.3 million dollars) a year and help relieve the fiscal deficit, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Frederick Ma told the Legislative Council.

The hike, proposed in the 2003/2004 Budget, was endorsed by theLegislative Council Wednesday.

Commenting on the move, Ma noted that it will ease the government's budget deficit by providing an additional and stable source of recurrent revenue, without affecting people's livelihood.

He also pointed out that the increased tax is still a relatively small amount compared with the average price of an air ticket, and thus will not hinder tourism development.

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