HONG KONG -- The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government announced on Wednesday that with its policy intervention, the overall poor population in 2020 were 553,500 persons, down markedly by 88,000 persons compared to the 2019 figures.

The HKSAR government released on Wednesday the "Hong Kong Poverty Situation Report 2020," the ninth annual update of the poverty situation analysis since the publication of the first official poverty line in 2013.

Adopting the analytical framework of the poverty line endorsed by the Commission on Poverty, the Office of the Government Economist in collaboration with the Census and Statistics Department (C&SD) updated and analyzed the poverty statistics using data from the General Household Survey by the C&SD as the basis.

Affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Hong Kong's economy experienced a severe recession in 2020, and the labor market deteriorated sharply, characterized by a noticeably rising unemployment rate and decelerated overall wages growth, according to the report.

Without timely policy intervention by the HKSAR government, a distinct deterioration in the poverty situation would have been highly likely in 2020, the report said.

In 2020, prior to the HKSAR government's policy intervention, the poor population and the poverty rate stood at 1,652,500 persons and 23.6 percent, respectively.

Looking ahead, the poverty situation outlook hinges on the development of the pandemic across the globe and the pace of economic recovery in Hong Kong, the report noted.

If the Hong Kong community can provide widespread support to the implementation of the vaccination program and the anti-epidemic measures, it would lay a solid foundation for a rapid recovery of the economy, thereby alleviating the local poverty situation as well, it said.