Hong Kong finance chief Paul Chan warns of full-year negative growth as anti-government protests batter economy
- As city enters technical recession, minister calls on residents to set aside differences
- Chan makes reference to popular protest slogan ‘If we burn, you burn with us’
Hong Kong’s financial chief on Sunday warned the city was heading towards negative economic growth for the full year as he appealed to the public to unite against the notion of “burning together”, referencing a popular slogan among anti-government protesters.
Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po called for an end to violence and destruction on his weekly blog, noting that various sectors had been forced to bear huge costs from protest disruption and attacks over more than four months of social unrest.
“The government will be announcing its advance estimates for the third quarter on Thursday. After seeing negative growth in the second quarter, the situation continued in the third quarter, meaning our economy has entered technical recession,” he wrote.
“It seems it will be extremely difficult for us to reach full-year economic growth of 0 to 1 per cent. I would not rule out the possibility that the full-year economic growth will be negative.”
Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor announced in her policy address earlier this month that Hong Kong had already slipped into a technical recession in the third quarter, after two consecutive quarters of economic contraction.
