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Billionaire Li Ka-shing Donates $128 Million As Protests Rock Hong Kong’s Economy

This article is more than 4 years old.

Billionaire Li Ka-shing will donate $128 million (HK$1 billion) to “ease the pressure” on small and medium-size businesses in Hong Kong after pro-democracy protests rocked the city’s economy.

Acting on behalf of Hong Kong’s richest man, the Li Ka Shing Foundation said donation was a response to “the global economic slowdown and the unprecedented challenges facing Hong Kong's local economy. 

Li Ka-shing, said that his foundation “will take the lead” working with the Hong Kong government’s $2 billion support package for local businesses, adding, “We welcome comments from all walks of life, work together, brainstorm and work together.”

Billionaire embroiled

Li Ka-shing’s offer to work with the city government in supporting local businesses comes after he expressed regret for previous comments on the protests. He had reportedly appealed to the city’s government to offer an “olive branch” to the pro-democracy movement in a bid to end the five-month-long political crisis.

Li Ka-shing was forced to respond after China’s Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission reportedly accused him in a Weibo post of “harboring criminals.” The criticism was echoed in the People’s Daily newspaper, which called for Hong Kong’s government to seize land from wealthy property developers to tackle the city’s housing shortage and sky-high property prices.

In August Li Ka-shing urged the city’s pro-democracy movement to “love China, love Hong Kong and love yourself” in a series of newspaper advertisements addressing protester and police violence.

Li Ka-shing has an estimated wealth of $27.1 billion and started out with Cheung Kong Plastics in 1950 at age 21 with $6,500 in savings and loans from relatives.

Li retired as chairman of CK Hutchison Holdings and CK Asset Holdings in 2018, joking that he’d been “working for a long time, too long.”

Protests

Protesters took to the streets of Hong Kong in March to voice their opposition to a now scrapped plan for an extradition deal with mainland China. The protests have grown in scale and morphed into a broader call for political reform, direct elections and police reform following the city government’s response and police violence.

The U.S.-China trade war and the ongoing protests have weighed heavily on the city economy with GDP growth slowing to 0.5 % in the second quarter while businesses face the risk of becoming trapped in the political fault lines between Beijing and the pro-democracy movement.

Hong Kong’s government announced on Friday that emergency laws would be used to ban masks at demonstrations following violent clashes between police and protesters on China’s National Day.

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