Hong Kong’s chronic air pollution is hurting business in the territory, a senior government adviser said on Monday in the first official admission that worsening air quality is affecting companies’ investment decisions.

“Up to a year ago [pollution] really hadn’t hit our pocketbook,” said Victor Fung, chairman of the government-backed Greater Pearl River Delta Business Council. “But now people are not coming to Hong Kong to take that job because their kid has asthma,” he said at a briefing.