English Version will be available soon.
As far as The Professional Commons is concerned, the emergence of ageing population suggests that a substantial increase in elderly population in the future requires an urgent review of the existing retirement protection mechanism.
To this end, some studies have been conducted, which ended up in a report “Ensure the Financial Security of the Elderly – Research Report on Universal Old Age Pension Scheme” that was released in February 2010. It was expected that the release of that report could spark out ideas in a bid to facilitate discussion of issue on whether to introduce the “Universal Old Age Pension Scheme” (OAP Scheme). Unfortunately, the Government still budged to change its negative attitude on this topic, even after the report has been published for almost two years. Instead, it attempts not to let this issue go forward under an excuse that “it is not easy for the community to reach a consensus on a universal retirement protection scheme” (quoted from 2011 Policy Address).
On 31 October 2011, we were invited to a hearing for the Subcommittee on Retirement Protection of the Panel on Welfare Services of the Legislative Council, in which members of the Subcommittee as well as government officials attending the hearing were briefed of the rationale and specific arrangements over the proposed OAP Scheme. In the light of this, we decided to revisit the proposal that we made last year. With updated data, it has been confirmed that our proposed OAP Scheme is still sustainable, therefore standing numerous assumptions that we had made in the first place.
It is believed that a sustainable retirement protection scheme would be of critical importance to achieve not only the well-being but also the long-term interest amongst Hong Kong people. Details please check the full text of the report updated in October 2011.