New government measures to encourage childbirth in Hong Kong are aimed at managing the territory's declining birthrate and preventing it from "falling off a cliff", Deputy Chief Secretary Warner Cheuk said on Wednesday.

He was speaking at a Legco panel meeting about 11 measures unveiled in the Policy Address earlier this month, including upping a newborn baby bonus from HK$20,000 to HK$30,000 for couples who have their second child or more.

New People's Party lawmaker Dominic Lee asked Cheuk whether the government had any benchmarks to assess the effectiveness of these measures, saying it's "worrying" that Hong Kong's overall fertility rate had dropped to 0.73 births per woman in 2025.

Cheuk said the government's medium-term goal is to manage the decline and prevent a sharp drop, adding that existing measures have already had an effect.

"If we didn't even have these measures, logically, we can assume the decline would be even steeper. Falling birth rates are a problem faced by every developed economy around the world," he said.

DAB lawmaker Rock Chen said the government should give the public confidence in Hong Kong's economic future by generating more opportunities across different industries.

He said people need to believe that the next generation will have good job prospects, and only then will they feel reassured about having children.

Cheuk said Hong Kong's economic momentum has improved markedly in recent years, and the government will do its best to nurture a pro-childbirth environment.



Edited by Cecil Wong