Government brewing up plans to study retirement protection programs

Check out Community Care Fund's pilot project for CSSA recipients.

Chief Secretary Carrie Lam says the Commission on Poverty will commission a study on the future direction of retirement protection in Hong Kong by Prof Nelson Chow, to be submitted this year.

Mrs Lam, who is the commission's chairman, made the announcement at a media session today with Secretary for Labour & Welfare Matthew Cheung.

She said Prof Chow will first examine the viability and sustainability of the current system, and consider all opinions expressed by the community and concern groups. He will form an impartial, objective and scientifically based opinion for the commission to consider the way forward on the issue.

Mrs Lam said the commission also discussed the setting of a poverty line, but a consensus has not yet been reached. The poverty line will focus on quantifying the number of poor people, looking into the cause of poverty, and measuring the effectiveness of the Government’s poverty alleviation policies.

The work is complicated and involves a large quantity of data, she said, adding the commission hopes to work out the line this year.

The commission’s Social Security & Retirement Protection Task Force has also suggested working with the Community Care Fund to launch a pilot scheme to encourage Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) recipients to seek employment by opening savings accounts for them.

Meanwhile, on recent reports about RTHK, Mrs Lam said it is an internal matter within the department and the best way to resolve the issue is frank communication between the management and staff. She said both sides have the wisdom and communicative ability to resolve the problem.