HK gov't to increase heritage conservation funding

Special Report:Global Financial Crisis

HONG KONG, Feb. 25 (Chinese media) -- Financial Secretary of Hong Kong John Tsang Wednesday proposed to increase funding for the conservation of historic buildings in the city.

According to Tsang, who delivered his budget speech on Wednesday, the Development Bureau of Hong Kong has just announced the results of the first batch of historic buildings under the Revitalizing Historic Buildings Through Partnership Scheme.

"The capital cost of these projects is approximately 500 million HK dollars (about 64 million US dollars), which is about half of the fund earmarked for the scheme," said Tsang.

To enable more historic buildings owned by the Government to benefit from the scheme, Tsang proposed to earmark an additional sum to bring the total amount of uncommitted funds under the scheme back to one billion HK dollars (about 128 million US dollars). He said, by doing so, applications for the second batch of historic buildings could be invited in the first half of this year as scheduled.

To encourage private owners to conserve historic buildings graded by the Antiquities Advisory Board, Tsang had increased the provision for maintenance grants and raised the ceiling of financial support for each application.

Hong Kong financial secretary presents 2009-2010 budget

HONG KONG, Feb. 25 (Chinese media) -- Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government will likely have a surplus of 18 billion HK dollars (2.32 billion U.S. dollars) in the Operating Account for 2008-2009.

HKSAR government financial secretary John Tsang made the forecast while delivering the Budget for the fiscal year 2009-2010 at the Legislative Council here Wednesday. Full story