In March 2021, Chan claimed that it was "absolutely reasonable" that Beijing was planning to implement electoral changes to have only "patriots" serve in the government. After the
Heritage Foundation downgraded Hong Kong's ranking from their yearly economic freedom index report, Chan said that "When they arrived at that decision, they must have been clouded by their ideological inclination and political bias" and also disputed the view that Beijing is in charge of the city's economic policies.
National security In February 2021's budget announcement, Chan allocated HKD $8,000,000,000 for a "non-recurrent appropriation to a special fund to meet the expenditure for safeguarding national security". It was not mentioned in his speech but rather in a 1000-page document,
Jeremy Tam, in response, said that "Eight billion is quite a large amount of money, particularly in this funding you do not have any transparency. We don't know how they are going to use it ... we have absolutely no idea."
Housing In July 2021,
Xia Baolong stated that before 2049, "We expect Hong Kong society to be more harmonious and peaceful, and the housing problems that we are all concerned about will have been greatly improved. We will bid farewell to
subdivided flats and '
cage homes'". Shortly afterwards, Chan interviewed with
SCMP, vowing to help fix issues with
housing in Hong Kong. Chan said that land supply would need to be increased, and planning procedures would need to be simplified. In January 2023, Chan said that the government had decided against implementing a vacancy tax on empty apartments. On 11 January 2023, Chan said the government would not sell land for housing if bids failed to meet the government's reserve prices. In October 2023, Chan then said that the city's deficit would be larger than expected, due to the lack of land sales.
Taiwan In August 2022, Chan criticized
Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan. Chan and other government officials were criticized by
Lew Mon-hung for "crossing the line" with his statements on Taiwan, as the Basic Law stipulates that diplomatic affairs of Hong Kong are to be handled by China's Foreign Ministry.
Government COVID-19 policies On 11 September 2022, Chan said in his blog that increasing the vaccination rate in Hong Kong would be key to reopening the border, without specifying percentages. The same day, the government reported that the first-dose vaccination rate was 93.7%, second-dose rate was 91.1%, and third-dose rate was 74.6%. On 19 September 2022, Chan claimed that local citizens might be fine with hotel quarantine, stating it "might be acceptable to the locals, but we know it might not be good enough in terms of attracting tourists and international business travellers". In contrast, a survey done by
City University of Hong Kong of local citizens showed that a majority preferred the no hotel quarantine model of "0+7" rather than the "3+4" model of 3 days in hotel quarantine. Chan also admitted that Hong Kong had lost too many professionals, stating "We do acknowledge the loss of talent over the past half a year or more, but recently this is more worrying". On 17 October 2022, Chan said that the government has "been rationalising our anti-epidemic measures". On 25 October 2022, Chan said that "We had been out of touch with the rest of the world because of Covid." In February 2023, Chan took questions on a radio program, but most callers were fixated on the mask mandate, with one caller saying "It's very difficult to tell people and persuade [them] that we are a leading international centre when we are the last people on the planet to remove masks."
Budget and GDP growth In February 2022, Chan projected the government's deficit for the year at HK$56.3 billion, and in September 2022, revised his projection upwards to HK$100 billion. Chan said that the official government projection for 2022's GDP growth would be between -0.5% to 0.5%, however, from July to September, it fell 4.5% year over year with one economist saying that a 3% drop for all of 2022 would be possible. In November 2022, the government downgraded Chan's original projection to -3.2% for the year. Chan blamed "poor market conditions, shrinking corporate profits tax, relatively quiet stock and property markets, and less revenue from stamp duties." In December 2022, Chan acknowledged that the government had to sustain "substantially large" anti-Covid costs. In January 2023, Chan said that more than HK$600 billion was spent on anti-pandemic policies in the past few years. Chan said that it was "more important to increase income" than cut expenses, In February 2023, the deficit for 2022-2023 was revealed to be HK$140 billion, more than double the original estimate of HK$56.3 billion. In February 2023, Chan also forecast a HK$54.4 billion deficit for 2023-2024, as well as GDP growth of 3.5% - 5.5%. In early 2023, when announcing the new budget, Chan was asked by a lawmaker on why the budget did not include money for poverty reduction; Chan responded by saying "As a SAR official, I will not be intimidated. [Lawmakers] cannot use their vote of support or opposition to force me into doing something which I think would be inappropriate."
Singapore In September 2022, the
Global Financial Centres Index ranked Hong Kong in 4th place from its previous 3rd place, with Singapore taking 3rd place. On 10 October 2022, Chan defended Hong Kong, and said "But if you look at the content closely, Hong Kong's total score has actually increased by ten," but did not address Singapore's score increasing by 14 points. In March 2023, Chan said that Hong Kong was more fun than Singapore, and that "We are way more fun. We have natural mountains and tourists can also cross the border to the mainland."
Financial Summit and personal COVID-19 infection In March 2022, Chan announced the November 2022
Global Financial Leaders' Investment Summit. After several US lawmakers asked US-based financial executives to not attend the Summit, Chan said that the lawmakers has a "narrow mindset."
RTHK reported that it was unclear if Chan could attend the Summit due to testing positive for COVID-19. Chan also said that Hong Kong is "back in business" and "We're back!" while delivering a pre-recorded video to Hong Kong FinTech Week, though he was not able to attend the event in person due to him being unable to fly to Hong Kong until testing negative for COVID, due to Hong Kong's restrictions. The Department of Health, in a press release issued at 11:57pm on 1 November 2022, said Chan was a "recovered case and was not contagious, and isolation was not required," but did not specify if Chan tested negative on his PCR test. The press release also stated that Chan will attend the Summit but "will not take part in meals," and did not specify the reason behind that if he had "recovered." There was no information in the report about Chief Executive John Lee's earlier pledge on 1 November 2022 that Chan would not be allowed any exemptions, and would have to isolate if he tested positive. Later on 2 November 2022, the government denied that Chan was given any special treatment. In a press release, the government said that Chan "conducted a PCR test upon arrival at the HKIA yesterday and the result was positive with
Ct value within the range of the above-mentioned recovered cases," but did not provide the numerical range of acceptable Ct values which would exempt one from isolation. On 3 November 2022, Chan said that he did not benefit from any "double standards." In contrast, Hong Kong's leading microbiologist from the
University of Hong Kong, Ho Pak-leung, criticized the government's inconsistency and said there was a "failing to comply with a unified standard" with regard to Chan's case.
Middle East In January 2023, Chan traveled to Switzerland and began pitching Middle Eastern countries for investment in Hong Kong; Chan said there were "information gaps and perception issues" with Hong Kong.
Microelectronics Research and Development Institute In February 2023, Chan announced that the government would fund the Microelectronics Research and Development Institute in Yuen Long, to become a "leading organisation for supporting microelectronics development in the Asia-Pacific region."
Happy Hong Kong In April 2023, Chan announced the "Happy Hong Kong" program, and when asked about the effectiveness of the campaign, said it would be "pretty difficult to have a very well-defined numeric criteria to be established." Lawmaker
Doreen Kong questioned the effectiveness of the campaign on helping the city's economy. In September 2023, a survey found that the happiness level of Hongkongers had dropped to a 10-year low.
Future Fund The government's "Future Fund" was established in 2016, to which journalist
Gwyneth Ho said "In 2020, Financial Secretary Paul Chan began using the Future Fund... first to inject money into Cathay Pacific... it was supposed to be untouched for 10 years."
Strategic enterprises In October 2023, Chan announced that 30 "strategic enterprises" would set up or expand their business in the city; local media reported that some of those companies had already long been established in Hong Kong, such as Lenovo and JD, which were publicly listed in the city's stock exchange. == Current positions ==