Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung Kin-chung meets the press ahead of the weekly Executive Council meeting at the Central Government Offices, Hong Kong, on Nov 10, 2020. (PARKER ZHENG / CHINA DAILY)

The Hong Kong government has proposed dishing out a fresh tranche of financial aid worth HK$6.4 billion (US$825 million) to businesses heavily impacted by the city’s ongoing fourth wave of COVID-19 infections.

The proposal will be deliberated during a special meeting of the Legislative Council’s Finance Committee on Monday, Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung Kin-chung said, adding that he hopes lawmakers greenlight the proposal as soon as possible so that relief can be disbursed next month.

Over the past months, we had been stressing that there would not be further rounds of relief measures. But considering the severity of the situation now, we are indeed supposed to have targeted measures to help worst-hit businesses.

Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, chief secretary of the HKSAR

HK$5.5 billion will go toward implementing 19 programs to bail out coronavirus-affected industries, particularly leisure venues forced to close, restaurants that have been prohibited from providing dine-in service after 6 pm, and private schools. The remaining HK$900 million will be set aside for emergency use.

“Over the past months, we had been stressing that there would not be further rounds of relief measures. But considering the severity of the situation now, we are indeed supposed to have targeted measures to help worst-hit businesses,” Cheung said.

He also said it is necessary to offer such additional assistance to many sectors that should have seen booming revenues but now are suffering badly during the holiday season.

Three rounds of anti-pandemic subsidies totaling more than HK$300 billion have already been doled out by the Hong Kong government. The government had earlier cited deficit pressure on the Treasury as a reason not to distribute financial relief again, but changed its stance as the pain of the fourth wave deepened.

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Cheung said the government is now expected to see its deficit snowball to a record high of HK$300 billion for the current fiscal year.

Hong Kong reported 96 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, including 90 locally transmitted ones, as the city’s undersecretary for food and health, Chui Tak-yi, said the fourth wave has shown no signs of slowing despite the tough social distancing rules in place.

READ MORE: 26 untraceable virus infections among 96 new cases in HK

The city has recorded 1,207 local cases over the past two weeks, more than 30 percent of which were untraceable, Chui said, citing official data. About 23 percent of the new patients in the past fortnight were asymptomatic, confirming concerns over lingering transmission chains in the community.

Twenty-six of Thursday’s new cases were of unknown origin. At least 70 people tested preliminary positive for the coronavirus.

Hong Kong’s total of confirmed infections stood at 7,899 with at least 126 related deaths as of Thursday. 

Contact the writer at jefferygu@chinadailyhk.com