Hong Kong leader delays major policy address until Beijing visit
Hong Kong's Chief Executive Carrie Lam holds a news conference in Hong Kong, China
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam has postponed her annual policy speech until she travels to Beijing to ask the Chinese central government for help with measures to help her city's battered economy.
Chief executiveCarrieLamhad been due to make a key annual address on Wednesday outlining her administration's plans for the politically restless city.
Lam's speech clashed with Chinese President Xi Jinping visitto the Chinese southern coastal city of Shenzhen to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the special economic zone.
She said she is postponing the address after submitting several proposed measures to Beijing seeking their support to help boost Hong Kong's economy, which has taken a battering due to the coronavirus pandemic and months of anti-government protests last year.
Lam said at a news conference that she will travel to Beijing at the end of October to participate in meetings with various ministries and commissions and see if the central authorities will support the proposed measures. She declined to give details on the proposals.
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"It is a matter of responding to a positive indication from the central government that they want to take into account the chief executive's recommendations, that they really want to facilitate those policy measures so thatHongKongpeople have more confidence that the economy will bounce back."
The Chinese government has thrown its full support behindLam, a pro-Beijing appointee, despite her dismal approval ratings.
The central government's role in the semi-autonomous former British colony has been in the spotlight, in particular with the imposition in June of a security law after months of pro-democracy protests - the most intense in decades - last year.
The protests were triggered in part by fears inHongKongthat the central government was whittling away the freedoms granted when the city returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under a "one country, two systems" formula.
The protests and later the novel coronavirus have battered the city's economy with full year gross domestic product (GDP) forecast to contract 6per centto 8 per cent.