The Government would continue to hand out a series of subsidies to help people tackle inflation as well as to enhance people’s livelihood, said the Chief Executive, Mr Chui Sai On, said today.

He was speaking at the plenary session of the Legislative Assembly where he answered questions raised by 27 legislators on his governance and social issues.

To help the low-income group, Mr Chui said the Government would give out MOP27 million patacas to help some 5,000 households who are already receiving financal allowance.

The Government would also increase monthly electricity subsidies from MOP180 to MOP200 for residential households, spending MOP470 million in this campaign.

On housing policies, since the Economical Housing Law allows the authority to adjust income ceiling for those applying for economical housing, the government planned to adjust the income ceiling of one-member families to MOP19,355 and two-member families to MOP38,710.

He said the new adjustment would cover 80 per cent of Macao households, indicating more families would qualitify to purchase economical homes.

The Government would also increase by eight per cent the total subsidy to families qualified and waiting for public housing units, from 1 September 2012 to 31 August 2013, Mr Chui said.

The Chief Executive also revealed that a recent study had shown that Macao’s property and real estate market appeared to be overheated, and that he had assigned the special group for promoting the substantial development of real estaste to stipulate new regaulation to stop this unhealthy phenomeno

He stressed that the Government would strive to complete 19,000 public housing units by the end of 2012, and to provide more land to balance the demand and supply for private.

The Government would continue to implement a series of relief measures: tax reduction, susidy on purchasing raw water, adding that the Working Group on Food Prices was dedicated to expand the supply of goods to Macao to stabilise the commodity prices.

Speaking on cash handout policy, Mr Chui said the Government would continue to implement the cash handout policy in 2013.

The Chief Executive also dealt with questions on social security fund, public services, environmental protection, education, labour rights and other issues.

This was the second time the Chief Executive attended the plenary meeting of the Legislative Assembly, the first was on 26 April 2012.