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HKFP
11 hours ago
- Politics
- HKFP
Pro-Beijing district councillor withdraws from Miss Hong Kong Pageant after official reminder of duties
Pro-Beijing District Councillor Angel Chong has decided to quit the Miss Hong Kong Pageant, one day after taking part in the first round of interviews for the beauty contest. Chong made the announcement on Instagram on Wednesday afternoon, saying that she joined the beauty pageant because she believed it was a good platform to promote the work of district councillors, especially among young people. However, after reading news reports and people's comments, she realised the public perception was not as positive as she had thought, she added. The incident 'has affected the public perception of the District Council to some degree, and that was the last thing I wanted to see,' Chong wrote in Chinese. 'Therefore, we think we should follow the public perception and protect the image of the District Council… I've decided not to continue participating in the Miss Hong Kong Pageant.' Chong's participation in the first round of interviews sparked controversy online on Tuesday. Netizens commented on social media, with some asking why a district councillor had so much spare time to join the entertainment industry, and others suggesting Chong should join the contest only after she resigns from the District Council. Chong's announcement comes after Alice Mak, the home and youth affairs chief, reminded district councillors of their duties on Tuesday, local media reported. Mak told journalists that she had learned from media reports that a district councillor was taking part in the pageant. Regardless of their profession, district councillors should follow the Performance Monitoring Guidelines for Members of the District Councils and fulfil their duties, Mak said. Chong, a member of the city's largest pro-Beijing party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), was appointed as a Sai Kung district councillor in late 2023 during the 'patriots-only' District Council elections. It was the first time the number of seats chosen by the public was slashed to around 20 per cent, with the rest selected by the city's leader, government-appointed committees, and officials. At that time, Chong was 23 years old – the youngest among 179 government-appointed district councillors, reported RTHK. According to her declaration of interest, Chong previously worked at a subsidiary of Chinese Merchants Group, a state-owned enterprise as of early February 2024, but she quit by September that year. Plans to overhaul the District Council elections were unveiled in May 2023 to ensure only 'patriots' were elected, following a pro-democracy landslide at the last polls in 2019. The number of seats chosen democratically by the public were slashed from 452 to 88 – reducing the power of public votes to a fifth. The rest are to be chosen by the city's leader and government-appointed committees. Constituency boundaries were redrawn, the opposition were shut out, voting hours were slashed by an hour, and each local council is to be chaired by a government official, similar to colonial-era arrangements. All candidates undergo national security vetting to ensure patriotism.
South China Morning Post
03-04-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Proposed Hong Kong smoking ban could lead to billions lost in tax revenues: lawmaker
The smoking ban proposals to be vetted by Hong Kong's legislature this month could slash tax revenues by billions of dollars without significantly reducing the smoking rate due to smokers shifting to illicit cigarettes, a lawmaker has warned. Advertisement Among the 10 control measures first announced in June last year, the most controversial was the banning of flavoured smoking products, with authorities saying it would ban all flavours except menthol by 2026 at the earliest, while the latter would be tackled at a later stage. 'There are worries that the measures may not help much in cutting the smoking rate but could instead lead more people to smoke illicit cigarettes,' lawmaker Edward Leung Hei from the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) told a radio programme on Thursday. 'The authorities have estimated that the revenue would rise to HK$9 billion [in 2024-25] after a tax raise, but it fell short of expectation in the end,' he said, noting that the city's revenue from the tobacco duty was around HK$7 billion (US$900 million) in 2023, with tax earnings from tobacco lost to sales of illicit cigarettes. Leung also pointed out that the smoking rate had dropped only slightly from 9.5 per cent in 2021 to 9.1 per cent in 2023, after the tobacco duty was last raised in 2023. There was a bigger decrease from 10.2 per cent in 2019 to 9.5 per cent in 2021 before the tax raise. Advertisement 'The decrease in the smoking rate might not necessarily align with the increase in tobacco duty,' he said. The Post earlier reported that the Health Bureau would launch the 10 control measures in phases, to further reduce Hong Kong's smoking rate to 7.8 per cent.
