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The following is a transcript of remarks by the Chief Executive, Mr Tung Chee Hwa, following his arrival in Auckland today (Saturday) ahead of the annual APEC Economic Leaders Meeting.

Question: Given the deterioration in Sino-US relations, what impact have they had on Hong Kong and what are your expectations of this summit between President Jiang and President Clinton?

Chief Executive: I saw you on TV last night, you always tend to ask rather negative questions (laughter). Let me tell you this. I think the Sino-US relationship is very important to China, to the United States of America and to Hong Kong as well, and I' m glad the two leaders will have the opportunity to spend time to discuss the bilateral relationship. And we are all looking forward very much to a good outcome of that meeting.

Question: What do you hope to get out of the meetings on the question of the 'Millennium Round' [of WTO negotiations]?

Chief Executive: Well, as I said earlier on, we are here almost two-and-a-half years after the financial crisis in Asia first erupted and it is a good time for us to review the past, to gather experiences, to look at the future. Firstly, to ensure that the financial turmoil should not happen again. And secondly, as the economies are now all slowly recovering, how we can be sure that the recovery will be sustained and will eventually be strong and good for everybody.

And of course the other issue we will discuss is this: If you look back at 10 years of history, or that many years of history of APEC, we have always been a force to promote the liberalisation of trade and investment on a global basis. And this obviously will be a very important subject of our discussions and I would hope that we would have some very positive result which would help the new WTO round of discussions which is due to start in November in Seattle.

Chief Executive 's transcript in Auckland (Chinese part)

Photo: The Chief Executive, Mr Tung Chee Hwa, and Mrs Betty Tung, are saluted by a special guard of honour as they arrive at Auckland International Airport ahead of the annual APEC Economic Leaders Meeting.

End/Saturday, September 11, 1999

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