A Hong Kong court has sentenced the father of a wanted activist to eight months in jail for attempting to cash out an insurance policy worth more than HK$88,000 (US$11,251) in his daughter’s name, rejecting suggestions that the sentence amounted to “collective punishment” against a relative of a fugitive. Kwok Yin-sang, 69, became the first person jailed for trying to deal with the financial assets of an absconder – his 29-year-old daughter, Anna Kwok Fung-yee, a United States-based activist who...

Hong Kong’s financial chief has defended his latest budget against public criticism over the lack of sweeteners, stressing that the government must balance its finances with long-term investments for the city’s benefit. Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po said on Thursday he would brief credit-rating agencies and the International Monetary Fund next month on his budget, including the proposed HK$150 billion (US$19.2 billion) transfer from the Exchange Fund to support infrastructure projects. His...

Hong Kong’s early childhood education sector will receive its lowest level of subsidy in more than a decade as the number of preschools falls to a 13-year low, with the government cancelling two grants for kindergartens in the new school year. According to the annual budget announced on Wednesday, the early childhood sector will receive only HK$4.5 billion (US$575 million) from the government in the 2026–27 financial year, representing a 6.6 per cent drop from the current year. “This is mainly...

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX), which operates Asia’s third-largest stock exchange, reported a record-high annual profit for the second straight year, thanks to higher market turnover and robust listing activity, it said in a stock exchange filing on Thursday. Net profit in 2025 increased 36 per cent to HK$17.75 billion (US$2.28 billion), or HK$14.05 per share, from HK$13 billion a year earlier, which was also a record. The result beat market expectations of HK$17.44 billion. The bourse...

We have put together stories from our coverage of Hong Kong’s 2026-27 budget. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Budget reveal: government turns matchmaker with stronger hand in shaping economy Hong Kong’s finance chief on Wednesday lived up to his credentials as a chartered accountant when he produced a surprisingly robust budget, flush with surpluses and full of initiatives to be funded through substantial means at his disposal. 2. Here is how you...

A Hong Kong appellate court has quashed Jimmy Lai Chee-ying’s fraud conviction for operating a consultancy office from his now-defunct tabloid-style newspaper, Apple Daily, finding that the prosecution failed to prove the jailed former media boss had made a “false representation”. In a judgment delivered on Thursday, the Court of Appeal ruled that the prosecution had failed to prove that Lai and another executive at Next Digital, the paper’s parent company, could be held criminally liable for...