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| | Frequently Asked Questions | |
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General
Eligibility
Types of Projects
Budget, Grant and Matching Contributions
Application
Terms and Conditions
Further Information
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| 1. |
What is the Professional Services Development Assistance Scheme (PSDAS)? |
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PSDAS is established by a government allocation of HK$100 million to provide financial support for projects which are conducive to enhancing the competitiveness of the Kong Kong's professional service sector as a whole, or of individual sectors, in external markets (including the Mainland) or projects which aim at enhancing the standard of professional services in Hong Kong. |
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| 2. |
Who are eligible to apply? |
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Non-profit-distributing professional bodies, trade and industrial organisations and research institutes registered under the laws of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. |
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| 3. |
What is the definition of a "non-profit-distributing organisation"? Is it the same as that of a "non-profit-making organisation"? |
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A non-profit-distributing organisation is an organisation which does not distribute profits to its directors, shareholders, employees, or any other persons. Our intention is that organisations of which the mission is non-profit-making in nature should be eligible under the PSDAS. Nonetheless, we are aware that a non-profit-making organisation, despite its mission, may incidentally generate profits from its operation and in fact may have to do so in order to continue its operation. In order to be flexible in assessing the eligibility of the applicant, we have chosen to focus on whether the organisation has distributed profits, instead of whether it has made profits, hence the concept of "non-profit-distributing" is adopted. An applicant may provide supplementary information, such as the Memorandum and Articles of Association, to demonstrate the non-profit-making nature of the organisation. |
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| 4. |
If my organisation is non-profit-making in nature but offers year-end double pay and bonus for employees, are we eligible under the PSDAS? |
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If the organisation could provide documentary proof that it is not the organisation's objective to make profits, the payment of year-end double pay and bonus to employees would be considered flexibly as different from the distribution of profits to directors, shareholders or any other persons. |
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| 5. |
Is a Government-subvented organisation eligible to apply? Does it need to comply with any special terms and conditions? |
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A Government-subvented organisation may submit application under the PSDAS. However, to ensure that the proposed project has practical benefit to a professional service sector and is supported by it, an application from a Government-subvented organisation must secure cash sponsorship from non-subvented professional, trade or industrial organisations or companies in the private sector. The amount of sponsorship should not be less than 10% of the project cost. Besides, the PSDAS grant should not be used to finance manpower cost of existing staff. |
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| 6. |
What are the eligible professional service sectors? |
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Please refer to here for the list of professional service sectors covered by the Scheme. |
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| 7. |
How are the eligible professional service sectors derived? |
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PSDAS adopts the World Trade Organization's classification of professional services, and supplements it with the Hong Kong Trade Development Council's classification to take account of local circumstances. |
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| 8. |
The medical and dental services and paramedical services cover quite a large scope of services. Please state specifically the eligible professionals under these sectors. |
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Eligible professionals under medical and dental services include doctors, Chinese medicine practitioners, dentists, dental therapists and dental hygienists. Besides midwives, nurses, physiotherapists, eligible paramedical professionals include audiologists, chiropodists, clinical psychologists, dietitians, medical laboratory technologists, occupational therapists, optometrists, orthoptists, pharmacists, prosthetists, radiographers and speech therapists. If you have any doubts on the eligible professional sectors, you are welcome to check with the PSDAS Secretariat. |
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| 9. |
Are prospective professionals, i.e. students, the eligible beneficiaries? |
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Students are not the eligible beneficiaries of the PSDAS. |
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| 10. |
Is a project which has already started still eligible for the Scheme? |
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One of the vetting criteria is whether the project may be delivered by the Applicant as part of its normal business activities without PSDAS funding. In this connection, if the applicant has already started carrying out the project, the chance for funding support would be considered having regard to the details and merits of the project. |
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| 11. |
Will funding support be provided to a project which is in receipt of other public funding? |
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Projects which are or will be in receipt of financial support from any other Government funding schemes will not be considered. |
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| 12. |
What types of projects will PSDAS fund? |
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Examples of eligible projects include, but are not limited to, seminars, conferences, training courses, research studies and promotional events such as exhibitions. |
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| 13. |
Can you give some practical hints on what types of projects/activities will normally be rejected? |
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Applicants/Projects which cannot meet the general eligibility criteria or assessment criteria (see paragraphs 1 and 3.3 of the Guide to Application) will be rejected. Some examples of rejected projects are given below for illustration:
- Organisation of general skill training courses on general skills, e.g. general language courses or software application training courses such as training on using word processing software.
- Training courses which are readily available in the market, e.g. training courses on labour laws of the Mainland, which have been organized by various institutions/organisations.
- Seminars on general subjects targeting a general audience, including but not limited to professionals, e.g. seminars on corporate governance for business executives.
- Projects where the majority of target beneficiaries are not within the eligible professional services sectors, e.g. a conference on logistics and the majority of conference participants are logistics service providers, researchers, academics and businessmen.
- Projects which aim at promoting the professional services in local community.
- Projects which aim at enhancing the understanding of students on the professional service sector concerned so as to encourage them to join the profession.
- Training courses that help the participants to acquire recognized professional qualifications in Hong Kong, Mainland or overseas countries.
- Projects which are of a commercial nature, e.g. setting up development of an on-line purchasing system for certain products.
- Development of an association's website which cost should be borne by the association itself as its normal activity.
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| 14. |
Can a project target only a limited number of selected professionals? |
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Whether the Project can benefit a large number of professionals in the professional service sector(s) concerned or whether the Project can benefit the society significantly through the profession is one of our vetting criteria. If your project targets only selected professionals, you may consider to arrange wider dissemination of project results, re-run the project for more beneficiaries and / or extend applicability of the project results for the benefits of other professionals, etc. so that more professionals may benefit from your project. |
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| 15. |
What general principles should be adopted when preparing the budget for a project? What expenditure items are eligible for funding support and what are not? |
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Applicants should exercise frugality and economy in preparing their budget. They should contribute as much as possible their existing resources and maximize resource input from the applicant organisation itself, private sponsorship and any other income arising from the proposed project. The need for each expenditure item should be well justified and for significant expenditure items, how such expenditure will be used in a cost effective manner should be explained.
Costs of additional direct manpower and equipment required directly incurred for implementing the Project, and other direct costs such as expenses for consumables, external consultancy fees, production and promotion costs of for disseminating project results, travelling and hotel accommodation expenses of project team members, etc. are eligible for funding support. Salary of existing staff may be charged to the Project Cost if and only if the deployment is absolutely necessary and essential to the Project Costs for setting up an office, entertainment, meals, home to workplace travelling expenses, cash prizes for competitions, participation fees at study/trade missions for individuals/companies and other costs not related to the Project will not be funded. Applicants should not charge these items to the Project Cost expenses or regard any such expenses as part of their matching contribution. Some examples of rejected expenditure items are given below for reference:
- Airfare and hotel accommodation expenses for participants of an overseas seminar or visit.
- Cost for purchasing a notebook computer for presentational use at a seminar. (Applicant should make use of their existing office equipment or hire it from the venue provider.)
- Cost for setting up a new website for the project. (Applicant should post information of the project in their existing website.)
Please see paragraph 4.1 of the Guide to Application for other information. |
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| 16. |
How much can a project receive? |
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The maximum amount of grant for an approved project is HK$2 million. Funding support is given on a dollar-for-dollar matching basis. An applicant is required to contribute at least 50% of the Project cost. |
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| 17. |
What count as the applicant's matching contributions? Is only cash contribution accepted? |
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Contributions could either be in cash or in kind. Sponsorship from third party which may be in cash or in kind and income of the project can also be treated as contributions from the applicant. Please refer to paragraph 4.2 of the Guide to Application for details about what constitutes as a contribution in kind. |
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| 18. |
Will PSDAS provide additional grant if the actual total expenditure exceeds the estimated expenditure? |
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Under no circumstances will the PSDAS provide any additional grant to an approved Project after signing the Project Agreement. The successful applicant is required to cover any shortfall but in any event inform the PSDAS Secretariat if it foresees that the total expenditure will exceed the original budgeted expenditure by whatever amount. |
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| 19. |
How many applications can one organisation submit? |
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Application will be invited four times a year (please refer to see the application cycles). In addition, urgent applications, if justified, may be submitted any time. (Please see Question 23 on urgent applications). The total submission for each Applicant including any urgent applications should not exceed 10 applications in 12 consecutive months (for avoidance of doubt, there is no limit on the number of project an organisation may participate as collaborating organisation.) |
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| 20. |
Is there any application fee? |
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No application fee is charged. |
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| 21. |
What supporting documents are required for application? |
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Please refer to paragraph 2.1 of the Guide to Application. |
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| 22. |
How long does the processing of an application take? Who will assess the application? |
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It normally takes two months to process an application after the closing date for submission. The PSDAS Secretariat will conduct a preliminary screening of each application. A Vetting Committee will then assess the applications and formulate funding recommendations for each project. For justified urgent application (see Question 23 below), the same processing steps will be applied but condensed to about one month as far as possible after receipt of all the required information from Applicants. |
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| 23. |
Under what circumstances can an urgent application be made? Please give an example. |
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Urgent applications are to cater for mainly unforeseen urgency in seeking PSDAS funding which cannot be catered for by the normal cycle. For instance, upon receipt of invitation in January 2007 to participate in a real estate exhibition in Shanghai scheduled for April 2007, the Applicant proposes to launch promotion for Hong Kong facility management services in the exhibition. In this case, it is not feasible to wait for the decision of the Vetting Committee which will only meet in late May 2007. It is thus justified for the Applicant to submit an urgent application to the PSDAS Secretariat for urgent processing. |
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| 24. |
How will an applicant be notified of the application results? |
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The PSDAS Secretariat will inform the applicant in writing of the assessment results. |
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| 25. |
What are the terms and conditions for the grant? |
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Successful applicants will be required to sign an agreement prepared by the Government which lays down the terms and conditions of the grant. To facilitate monitoring and evaluation of approved projects, successful applicants will need to submit progress/project reports and financial reports. Please refer to the Guide to Application for more information. |
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| 26. |
Where can I obtain more information about this scheme? |
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For more information, please refer to Guide to Application or contact the PSDAS Secretariat at 3655 5952. |
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| 27. |
How can I obtain the Guide to Application and the application form? |
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You may download the Guide to Application and the application form. The application forms are also available at the Secretariat (23/F, West Wing, Central Government Offices, 2 Tim Mei Avenue, Tamar, Hong Kong). |
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