Funding and Loan

Introduction to the BUD Fund

What is the BUD Fund?

The BUD (Branding, Upgrading, and Domestic Sales) Fund scheme is to support individual Hong Kong enterprises in undertaking projects to develop brands, upgrade and restructure their business operations and promote sales in the Mainland and economies with which Hong Kong has signed Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements (IPPAs).

• In a nutshell, the BUD Fund is suitable for an “exporting” purpose – targeting one (or many) of the jurisdictions in the scope of FTA and IPPA to actively market and sell the enterprise’s products and services.

Access more general info here: https://fta.bud.hkpc.org/en

• Note that there may be constraints depending on the types of measure you apply for, for example, if your project is ONLY on Upgrading & Restructuring, you need to have a registered legal entity in the targeting FTA jurisdiction.

Key Facts on the Funding Scheme

• Funding on 50:50 matching basis (BUD Fund supports up to 50% of the budget, and no less than 50% should be contributed by the enterprise)
• The government will provide full funding support for the audit fee of the approved project, capped at HK$10,000 per audit which will be counted towards the cumulative funding ceiling per enterprise.
• The cumulative funding ceiling per enterprise under the Mainland and the FTA and IPPA Programmes is HK$6,000,000 (including audit fee), while the funding ceiling for each approved project is HK$1,000,000 (including audit fee).
• One enterprise can submit multiple concurrent applications for multiple projects, but the projects cannot overlap with other government-funded projects (e.g. TVP) and all projects have to be new (not commenced) ones.
• During the tenure of the Programme, funding support will be granted to each enterprise for a maximum of sixty approved projects (both Mainland Programme and FTA and IPPA Programme included).
• Project Duration: 24 months maximum
• Fund disbursement: You can opt-in for Initial Payment (75% of the approved funding, as of Mar 2022) or Reimbursement basis for the disbursement of funds.

Preparing for Application

Application & Vetting Process

• Application is open all year round, on a rolling basis.
• Under normal circumstances, HKPC, upon consulting IDC and PMC on the assessments, will complete the processing of a valid application within 60 clear working days from the date of receipt of a complete application accompanied by all necessary documentation proof and clarifications as requested by HKPC.
• However, based on experience, do note that the back and forth process with HKPC to submit the “complete application” with all the necessary documentation proof can easily take 4-6 months.

Supplementary Documents

Below are the supplementary documents we suggest you submit from Day 1 (including but not limited to the ones directly asked in the submission platform) to reduce processing time:

• Copy of Business Registration (with the digital payment record), and the Certificate of Incorporation (make sure the business information such as name, address, etc. are consistent across the documentation.)
• Copy of documentary proof of the shareholders on the Annual Return (NAR1)
• Proof of substantive ongoing business, supported by:
• Documentary proof of latest 6 months’ MPF record summary list with employee names
• 5-6 sets of latest 6 month’s business transaction documents such as purchase order, invoice, bank in receipt, etc.
• Copy of tenancy agreement or lease agreement of the registered office
• Documentary proof of the applicant’s annual sales turnover – e.g. if your sales activity happens digitally, a copy of the Stripe payments and invoices, etc.
• Latest signed auditor’s report
• Additional information on the business such as the customer types