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Following is an English transcript of a stand-up briefing by the Financial Secretary, Mr Donald Tsang, after the opening ceremony of the Seminar on the Cyberport today (Wednesday):

Reporter: Can you explain to the suggestions by some property developers that they were excluded from the discussion before the project was announced?

Financial Secretary: We have not tried to exclude anybody in the process. The only question is, we need a developer who would satisfy our conditions. Not only that there will be a cap on profit, not only there would be a very strict profit sharing condition, but there would be an immediate requirement on ploughing all the profit of the residential portion onto the Cyberport construction. The whole emphasis is Cyberport. The whole emphasis is technological project. It is not residential development as such. Even if you use all the money that we have from selling the residential portion, we will not have sufficient capital to develop the Cyberport. So the way we are approaching the issue is the most economic, most efficient way, from a taxpayer's point of view. And again, we will be totally transparent on the conditions and the lease of grant, and we will be putting all the proposals to the Town Planning Board as well as the Legislative Council in due course, so that everyone will see it is a fair one and a highly competitive environment and we are very careful in selecting what we are going to get. You must realise of course the Cyberport, at the end of the day, will be owned by the public, will not be owned by any private developer. We will be determining the leasing requirements. We will be determining who will be our tenants, and we will be determining the rental values as well. So for someone who has expertise, who has the connection, and is able to put up with the business risk for this matter, and is a technology firm, it is a very rare find. I think we have got the right thing, and we've got the right deal for the Hong Kong public.

Reporter: Do you think that other developers in the city could feel (that the Government is) slightly inclined toward crony capitalism?

Financial Secretary: I do not want to comment on what other people say, but I will be very patient in explaining to them this is a very important infrastructure, and we have been doing it very fairly. But the requirements for selection of a developer are very strict because it is not a property development project. And I would be very careful in explaining cronyism is never, never in Hong Kong's dictionary. We pride on being transparent, we pride on playing on a completely level playing field. There is no question whatsoever of Hong Kong Government, the SAR Government, engaging in cronyism.

End/Wednesday, March 17, 1999

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Financial Secretary's transcript on Cyberport (Chinese part)