To provide relief to retailers to help tide them over their financial difficulties arising from the epidemic, the Government has established the "Retail Sector Subsidy Scheme" (the Scheme) under the HK$30 billion "Anti-epidemic Fund".

How is retail sector defined

• retailing is defined as the resale of tangible goods to the general public for personal or household consumption or utilisation. No processing or transformation of the goods should be involved in the resale process.

• the Scheme does not cover stores primarily engaged in personal and business services.

• the determination as to whether resale is without transformation or whether goods are sold mainly to the general public for personal or household consumption will be made conclusively by the Government.

Subsidy amount

A one-off subsidy of HK$80,000 will be provided to each eligible retail store. The maximum amount of subsidy for a parent company that operates retail groups or chain stores under the same business registration is HK$3 million (equivalent to no more than 38 stores)


Eligibility

• Applicant has to be conducting substantial and substantive retail business at a fixed physical and individually operated store in Hong Kong; and

• Business commenced before 1 January 2020 and is still in operation at the time of application.

• exclusions:
  
  (1) stores with licences of restaurants, canteens, light refreshment restaurants, fresh provision shops, food factories, bakeries, siu mei and lo mei shops issued by the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department;

(2) hawkers (including licensed hawkers);

(3) mobile stalls and counters in department stores without separate payment system and stores operating under short-term tenancy of a duration less than 6 months; and

(4) retail stores conducting non-store retailing via mail order, internet or direct marketing sales only.

Application procedures

Applicants should complete and submit an online application form and upload the required supporting documents within the online application period (from 9am on 23 March 2020 to 11:59pm on 12 April 2020). Each retail branch of a retail chain should submit a separate application. Please visit https://www.retailsubsidy.gov.hk/en/ for details.

If you need more information in relation to this, please contact Ms. Amie Cheung at amie.cheung@lccpa.com.hk