Getting Hongkongers to retire in mainland China isn’t the answer to poverty: experts

Encouraging Hongkongers to retire across the border offers an alternative for some but cannot be the city’s solution to poverty, welfare experts and groups have said while calling for a blueprint with long-term strategies.

They also urged the government to spend money more effectively on poverty alleviation and supporting those in need amid the city’s surging expenditure on welfare.

The calls were made after Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu delivered his third policy address on Wednesday where he laid out plans to improve people’s livelihood, which experts said were lacking.

“The expenditure on welfare has been on the rise while the poverty issue has not been solved. That is because the money was not spent effectively,” Professor Paul Yip Siu-fai of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) said.

Lee highlighted in his policy address that more than HK$300 million (US$38.6 million) was spent on social welfare daily, topping the public expenditure of all policy portfolios.

Official statistics showed that the city set aside about HK$127 billion for social welfare in the 2024-25 financial year, which means about HK$350 million a day.

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