The Secretary for Economy and Finance, Mr Leong Vai Tac, speaks to reporters.
The Secretary for Economy and Finance, Mr Leong Vai Tac, today said the Government was making a continued effort to optimise its existing subsidy and loan schemes that are available to local businesses.
Planned enhancements included: improving the assessment methods of both applicant and guarantor strength – namely their respective overall financial position and debt-paying ability; and updating the methods to evaluate the development prospects of the sectors in which subsidy/loan applicants were engaged.
Speaking to reporters on Hengqin Island, Zhuhai Prefecture, on the sidelines of a public event, Mr Leong said the Government had asked its lawyers to continue the case against Viva Macau’s guarantor, in order to recover a loan it made to the bankrupt airline.
He added that, following Viva Macau’s bankruptcy, the Government had hired an external team of lawyers to pursue the case – via civil litigation – against the Hong Kong-registered guarantor of Viva Macau. Mr Leong said that, at the time, such approach had been considered to be more efficient to follow up on the case, rather than requesting a team of civil servants, namely from the Industrial and Commercial Development Fund, to do so.
In 2008 and 2009, the Industrial and Commercial Development Fund granted loans to Viva Macau and Air Macau, to support the development of the local aviation sector during a financial crisis that was impacting the global commercial aviation industry. The loan granted at the time to Viva Macau amounted to a total of 212 million patacas. The airline company went bankrupt in 2010.
Mr Leong explained that subsiding the airline industry had been a common international practice in the past. He shared a few examples: during the financial crisis period, Mainland authorities granted subsidies amounting to more than 10 billion renminbi to local airlines; in another case, Switzerland’s authorities loaned the equivalent to 200 million Hong Kong dollars to its national airline.
The Government has since 2010 used all legal means to recover from Viva Macau’s guarantor the amount loaned to the defunct airline; however, it failed to find any assets controlled by the guarantor to cover the debt. In June 2018, a court ordered the termination of the Government’s distraint procedures against Viva Macau’s guarantor.