HONG KONG – Hong Kong hiked stamp duty on stock trades Wednesday for the first time in almost three decades as it tries to plug a pandemic-induced record budget deficit, sending the local equity market tumbling.
The business-friendly financial hub, which prides itself on low taxes and no capital gains tax, has been battered for two years by long-running political unrest and then the coronavirus, putting a huge strain on government coffers.
In a bid to shore up finances, finance chief Paul Chan said he would lift the levy on share transactions to 0.13 percent from 0.1 percent, the first increase since 1993.
The news sent the Hang Seng Index plunging more than three percent, while bourse…
