Businesses are staging a forum on retirement protection.Photo: AFP
A pro-business party and 14 business organisations plan to step up their opposition to scrapping the controversial arrangement whereby employers can use their contributions to employees' retirement savings to offset severance and long-service payments.
The Business and Professionals Alliance is co-organising a forum for Thursday at which they will urge the government to spell out the impact of such a move.
READ MORE: Hong Kong trade unions and business at odds over abolition of provident fund offset mechanism
A consultation paper on retirement protection and the city's Mandatory Provident Fund set to be released by the government before Christmas is expected to address the idea of abolition.
Other co-organisers of the forum include the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, the Federation of Hong Kong Industries and the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce.
Professor Lawrence Lau Juen-yee, an economist and former vice-chancellor of Chinese University, Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority chairman David Wong Yau-kar and HKGCC vice-chairman Stephen Ng Tin-hoi will deliver keynote speeches at the forum.
The high-profile event will be the second initiative by the business sector in less than two weeks to oppose ditching the system.
On Monday, the Hong Kong Business Community Joint Conference, a coalition of 66 organisations representing small and medium-sized enterprises, placed adverts in two Chinese-language newspapers opposing abolition of the arrangement.
In his manifesto for the 2012 chief executive election, Leung Chun-ying said he would seek to lower the withdrawals made by employers to offset long-service or severance payments.
Unionists have long been fighting for abolition of the mechanism, but businesses have argued it would increase costs.
"It would be inappropriate for the government to ditch the arrangement before the administration, business and labour sectors reach a consensus," said Jeffrey Lam Kin-fung, vice-chairman of the alliance.
HK$3 billion in employers' contributions was used to offset employees' severance and long-service payments last year, a 12 per cent jump from 2013.
Wong Kwok-kin, a lawmaker from the Federation of Trade Unions, said: "The business sector has exaggerated the burden on businesses. There is room for discussion on how to scrap it."
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