The Chief Executive, Mr Chui Sai On, today outlined four main focuses in next year’s policy blueprint: improving people’s livelihoods, deepening urban development, promoting economic growth, and striving for sound social governance.
Mr Chui disclosed the initiatives in the Policy Address for the Fiscal Year 2019, entitled “Seize Opportunities for Balanced Development”, delivered at the Legislative Assembly this afternoon.
In support of its policy aims, the Chief Executive first emphasised that the administration must focus on improving people’s livelihoods. The Government would persist in consolidating the social security network based on the principles of comprehensive support and multi-level coverage combining short-, medium- and long-term policies; already, the Non-mandatory Central Provident Fund System has come into effect.
The Government would continue optimising the social security system comprising a two-tier social security system, social support and social welfare, as well as enriching measures for people’s well-being.
As recommended by the Government, the Minimum Subsistence Index would be increased to 4,230 patacas from January 2019, while other existing welfare measures would be extended, maintained or increased in amount. The pension would increase to 3,630 patacas per month; old age allowance would remain at 9,000 patacas per year; the Ordinary Disability Gratuity and Special Disability Gratuity would increase to 9,000 patacas and 18,000 patacas, respectively.
The Government would continue providing a subsidy of 5,000 per month to eligible employees with disabilities. Employers hiring people with disabilities would be granted a tax deduction of up to 5,000 patacas on profit tax or personal income tax per employee with disabilities.
The Chief Executive also said the Government would continue providing support to students from families with financial difficulties, including by disbursing tuition fee subsidies, stationery allowances, meal allowances and textbook allowances.
As recommended by the Government, stationery allowances would increase to 2,500 patacas for each kindergarten pupil or primary school student, and 3,250 patacas for each secondary school student; and the meal allowance would increase to 3,800 patacas for each student per year. The Government would also continue providing tuition fee subsidies for Macao students who study in schools in Guangdong Province.
The Policy Address also recommended that the stationery allowance provided to each Macao student pursuing tertiary education or postgraduate studies would increase to 3,300 patacas per year.
The Government recommended continuing with the Wealth Partaking Scheme in 2019, through offering 10,000 patacas to each permanent resident and 6,000 patacas to each non-permanent resident; also, pursuant to the law on Provident Fund Personal Accounts, injecting a 10,000-pataca initiation allowance from the Government into the personal account of every eligible permanent resident of Macao; and continuing to inject an extra sum – of 7,000 patacas in 2019 – from the fiscal surplus into the provident fund account of every Macao resident.
Other welfare measures such as the Continuing Education Programme, healthcare vouchers, electricity bill subsidies, tap water tariff subsidies and bus fare concessions would continue. To implement a healthy birth policy and increase the fertility rate, the birth allowance under the Social Security Fund would increase to 5,260 patacas, and both parents may apply at the same time.
As for tax incentives, apart from continuing with existing tax reduction and exemption measures, the Government also recommended four new tax incentives:
1. To support implementation of the development plan of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and encourage innovation, research and development, each enterprise would be entitled to a triple reduction in profit tax for the first three million patacas of joint venture R&D expenditure, and a double reduction in profit tax for the additional expenditure, subject to a ceiling of 15 million patacas;
2. To encourage an increased supply in the real estate leasing market, the property tax rate for leased properties would be reduced to eight percent, while the property tax rate for non-leased properties remained at six percent;
3. To encourage employment among senior citizens of age over 65 and persons with disabilities, the basic allowance for personal income tax for these groups would increase to 198,000 patacas; and
4. To promote development of specialised financial services, there would be an exemption of the profit tax on investment income from local bonds issued by local governments in mainland China and state-owned enterprises, and the stamp duty for issuing and acquiring the related bonds. Moreover, local enterprises would enjoy waivers of profit tax for revenue generated from Portuguese-speaking countries.
According to the Chief Executive, the Government would ensure rational use of land resources for building a liveable city. The Government would prioritise the construction of public housing when using recovered land. Meanwhile, the Commission Against Corruption (CCAC) would conduct comprehensive analyses of cases involving annulled land grants, and would propose an overall solution and recommendations for regulating and supervising land concessions.
Formulation of the preliminary planning for Macao’s urban development master plan would be completed during next year, ready to consult public opinion. The Government would implement the Medium-to-long-term Plan for Usage and Development of the Waters of the Macao Special Administrative Region (2016-2036), and achieve the short-term goals for coastline remediation and use of nearshore waters.
The Government would also expedite construction of new urban areas, spare no effort in urban renewal work, accelerate discussion of ownership proportion for building redevelopment, and speed up the legislative process regarding the legal system governing temporary housing and replacement of housing in areas subject to urban renewal.
On public housing initiatives, the Government would continue implementing the public housing policy of "Public housing as the core supplemented by the Home Ownership Scheme", strengthen supervision to ensure the quality of public housing construction, and enhance public housing management standards, implement regular application processes for public housing, and resume the application process involving about 4,000 new Home-Ownership Scheme housing units during next year.
The Government would implement the “post-19,000 units” public housing construction, to achieve the target of completing 28,000 housing units in four phases at the New Urban Zone Area A, with the first phase to provide 7,000 housing units on seven pieces of land. The areas of land on Avenida Wai Long, Western stretch of Avenida dos Jogos da Ásia Oriental in Taipa, and the original site of the power station, would be used for providing 6,500, 2,000 and 1,500 housing units, respectively.
Regarding education policies, Mr Chui said the Government would continue promoting comprehensive development of education, foster multi-talented people, continue optimising the long-term mechanism for talent cultivation, perfect policies regarding talented people and supportive systems, and enhance transparency and the regulatory mechanism for introducing talented people.
The Government would compile information about demand for talented professionals, supported by the information regularly published and shared by cities of the Greater Bay Area, facilitate exchanges of information about talented people in the area; and continue developing Macao as a base for tourism education and a cradle for cultivating talented individuals who are bilingual in Chinese and Portuguese.
The Government would also continue coordinating and enhancing youth development work, commence the second phase of the Thousand Talents Programme during next year, coordinate the Greater Bay Area Youth Cooperation Development Programme, and launch the Greater Bay Area Macao Youth Internship Scheme, to provide a series of exchange and internship programmes with cultural and sports elements; strive to expand support services for young entrepreneurs into more Greater Bay Area cities, and facilitate matching between Macao’s innovation, entrepreneurship and employment platform and other platforms in the Greater Bay Area.
Mr Chui added that the Government would implement a healthy city strategy to promote happy family building, harmony between generations, encourage home care for the elderly, tackle the issues of an ageing society, expand childcare networks, create a favourable environment for social work development, and develop sports businesses for the benefit of people’s health.
The Government would also enhance cooperation between cities in the Greater Bay Area, and facilitate interactive matching and mutually-beneficial sharing on cross-border elderly care, medical services, social welfare and social support, to offer citizens more choices for social services.