Обязательный пенсионный фонд в Гонконге: история и особенности функционирования.

The Mandatory Provident Fund , often abbreviated as MPF (強積金), is a compulsory saving scheme (pension fund) for the retirement of residents in Hong Kong. Most employees and their employers are required to contribute monthly to mandatory provident fund schemes provided by approved private organisations, according to their salaries and the period of employment.

The Mandatory Provident Fund was implemented in December 2000, following the enactment of the Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Ordinance on 27 July 1995 and Provident Fund Schemes Legislation (Amendment) Ordinance 1998 in March 1998. is charged with supervising the provision of MPF schemes – it registers schemes and ensures that approved trustees administer schemes prudently. Any company that has not set up an MPF plan may be liable to criminal prosecution with possible fines of up to HK$100,000 and six months imprisonment; persistent offenders risk a penalty of HK$200,000 and one year in prison.

As the scheme operates on the principle of fully funded defined contributions into a privately managed plan funds contributed by employers and employees have and managed as a trust, which compartmentalises fund assets from those of the manager, investment decisions are delegated to trustee in the private sector. Legislation defines three types of MPF schemes: Employees and self employed are required to contribute 5% of their earnings to their MPF fund. When the scheme was launched, the upper relevant income limit for contributions was $20,000. Hong Kong employees and their employers started contributing to the scheme as early as 2000, but the employees can only withdraw accrued benefits at 65 and other specified conditions under the regulation. Only since 1 November 2013, employees were given freedom to transfer their fund assets to any provider they liked, once a year. However, only the portion of the fund assets corresponding to their contributions could be transferred.

The MPF was launched during a downturn in the economic cycle, and there was pressure from businesses to delay its launch. Furthermore, there was disquiet among many small businesses, for which employers' MPF contributions represented a de facto 5% increase to payroll costs.

When the scheme was launched, there were concerns among employee federations that due to changing life expectancy and investment returns, the assets constituting the fund at retirement would only suffice to cover living expenses for a short period. However, union representatives criticised Leung for stalling on the delivery of his campaign promise as no changes had been made to the offset arrangements as at the end of October 2015. In early 2016, the pro establishment Bauhinia Foundation endorsed phasing out the offset mechanism, saying that additional costs to employers would be affordable, as the amount to only 0.4% of payroll costs expenditures, and the annual net profit margin would be lowered by a mere 0.04 percent. Global Aging Institute president Richard Jackson remarked in 2016 that the retiring baby boomers in Hong Kong were faced with challenges, as MPF was immature and traditional family retirement support was breaking down. Palacio explained that contributions being made are directed at two purposes – unemployment benefit and at the same time as a pension – thus not achieving either objective. From the period since its launch to 2010, employers used HK$12 billion from employees' MPF accounts to make severance or long service payments; employees made redundant risked seeing their MPF funds depleted by these withdrawals.