RESOURCES DEVOTED TO ARTS, TOURISM

A total of $42 million will be allocated to organise the first Hong Kong Performing Arts Market within two years.

Financial Secretary Paul Chan made the announcement while unveiling his 2022-23 Budget speech today and stressed that Hong Kong is uniquely positioned to tell the story of China and Hong Kong through the promotion of arts and culture development and exchange.

He pointed out that because Hong Kong is ranked as the second largest art market in the world, the city should consolidate its role as an East-meets-West centre for international arts and cultural exchange.

To further facilitate arts technology development, Mr Chan will allocate $30 million to implement a Arts Technology Funding Pilot Scheme with the goal of encouraging major performing arts groups to apply arts technology to enrich their stage production.

An additional $10 million will be injected into the Arts Capacity Development Funding Scheme to inspire small and medium-sized arts groups to further explore the use of arts technology.

As the the East Kowloon Cultural Centre is expected to be commissioned in phases next year, Mr Chan noted that he will earmark $85 million each year to support its development into a major arts technology venue. He also plans to set aside $70 million to upgrade the Leisure & Cultural Services Department facilities.

Given the development of tourism and the promotion of East-meets-West arts and cultural exchange are closely related, strengthening support for the tourism industry can help achieve synergy, the Financial Secretary emphasised.

In addition to the Government rolling out more than $3.8 billion in measures to support the tourism industry over the past two years, he will earmark an extra $1.26 billion. Of that amount, $600 million will be used to implement a Cultural & Heritage Sites Local Tour Incentive Scheme.

Another sum of $60 million will be used to sponsor the training of tourism practitioners to further improve the industry’s professional standards and service quality, Mr Chan added.

The remaining sum of $600 million will be used for supporting the work of the Hong Kong Tourism Board to revive the tourism industry and implement the Culture & Tourism Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

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