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Chief Executive comments on Basic Law Article 23
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Following is the translation of remarks by the Chief Executive, Mr Tung Chee Hwa, at a media session at the Central Government Offices' lobby today (September 16):

I notice that legislative work for Article 23 of the Basic Law has again become the focus of concern and discussion among various political groups. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government has a clear position on this matter. Let me state this position again.

Last year when we shelved legislative work for Article 23 of the Basic Law, we maintained that we had no timetable. Our prime consideration of when to start the legislative exercise again is that the community must have reached a basic consensus on the issue.

With the establishment of the new Legislative Council, everybody is actively considering their future work priorities. For the HKSAR Government, the most important task at hand is to make every effort to sustain our economic recovery and to let everybody share the fruit of this economic growth. Another priority is to map out electoral arrangements for returning the Chief Executive and the Legislative Council in 2007 and 2008 respectively. As you know, the Government is consulting the public on this. Therefore, we have no plans for the time being and will not seek to start afresh the process for legislating Article 23. As to when we will start such a process, the Government's position remains the same: We will consider the matter only after the community has reached a basic consensus on this question and after we have satisfactorily dealt with economic recovery, economic restructuring and constitutional arrangements. We will not consider the question now. Thank you.

Ends/Thursday, September 16, 2004

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