CE's transcript

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Following is the transcript of the Chief Executive, Mr Tung Chee Hwa, attending the English phone-in session on his Policy Address on RTHK R3 this morning (October 12). The hosts of the phone-in programme are Mr Nick Beacroft and Ms Yuen Chan:

Host: Mr Tung, good morning to you.

Mr Tung: Good morning, Nick.

Host: Thanks for joining us this morning. Your Policy Address seems to have been pretty well received yesterday and overnight, but does it not sadden you to an extent that after about four years in power you are still having to talk about the poverty of Hong Kong; you are having to scramble around looking at ways to create jobs and improve the education of our children?

Mr Tung: Well, first of all, I noted that the Policy Address was reasonably well received, but one can always do better and we will try and keep on doing better. Of course, when I started this job in 1997, my first Policy Address talked about the importance of education, and from there on, what we did was ask the Education Commission to take a total and comprehensive review of our existing education system. And it has taken the Education Commission two years, through consultation with the public at large, to come out with a report which they presented to us, in fact, a few weeks ago. And what the Government has done is to adopt this report and now we are going to move ahead full steam to push education reform. Education reform is a huge undertaking, it will take time to really get things going.

Now, insofar as poverty is concerned, because of the Asian financial turmoil and because of the bubble economy that existed before, our economy is going through a huge structural change and as a result of these changes we have to be mindful of the difficulties of the less fortunate, and this is why we are doing what we are trying to do.

Host: Mr Tung, in the previous year's Policy Address you were very big on the environment; this year, poverty alleviation. Our first caller, Mr Ho, is on the line and he wants to talk about the environment.

Caller: I think, last year, you have mentioned quite a bit on the environment but this year I think you shift the focus to something else. The question I just want to raise, I have two. The first is basically, what is your plan regarding the waste reduction? I understand that government has put a lot of energy in solving the air pollution but the waste problem is still a huge problem. At the moment we are still dumping a lot of useful material into the landfill. So I am asking whether we have a plan to reduce the waste and to put forward a more proactive recycling programme in Hong Kong.

And secondly, I am very worried about the plan of going forward with the SSDS, the Strategic Sewage Disposal System. And I can tell you, if this scheme goes ahead, your efforts in protecting the environment will disappear because all the sewage will discharge in the South China Sea and it will go back to Hong Kong. This is a very worrying policy, Mr Tung.

Mr Tung: Well, thank you very much. Firstly, this year in the Policy Address I did talk less about the environment and I want to emphasise this is not to say that I, myself, or the government are placing less emphasis on the environment. Not at all. Last year we devoted a whole lot on the environment and there is now a tremendous awareness in the community as a whole, how important the environment is. The fact that I did not mention as much this year, it is only because I am trying to finish a Policy Speech within 1 hour 50 minutes. If every subject is addressed then it will take maybe three or four hours for me to finish a Policy Address. That is the only reason.

But coming back to waste-recycling, I want to tell you that, yes, we need to do a lot better in the recycling of waste. I think there are examples around the world where solid waste is being recycled. It is environmentally friendly, it creates jobs and it is a thing that we need to look at very, very seriously. And beyond that, whatever is left after recycling, do we actually go through incineration or just through reclamation, I guess. These are the areas we need to evaluate from an environmental point of view, from the point of view of availability of land, and I would hope that in the coming year we would have a very comprehensive plan being pushed out. It is an area of great concern to the SAR Government.

So far as SSDS is concerned, the first stage of SSDS' implementation, we have some problems, and we all know that. But it is now moving ahead very smoothly and by the end of next year I would hope that the first stage of SSDS would be completed. Now, you were concerned about the discharge into the South China Sea and would it then come back and haunt us. Firstly, there is a treatment plant out in Stonecutter's Island and it is being treated and the discharge will be after the treatment. In the longer term we are hoping to take the discharge much further out into the sea.

And the second point I want to mention is that, like you, many of us are concerned would the first stage SSDS be really, truly successful, and we now have a specialist group studying the whole thing, with a view making sure that what we are doing is the right thing - to cover some of the points you have raised. And this specialist group should be presenting a report within the next few months and I can assure you we will make the report very public so we all know what it is all about. And I want to tell you that we share some of your concerns and we will be right on top of it.

Caller: Let me first of all say that we welcome the Government's initiative to launch a poverty alleviation initiative. It is necessary for the new economy. But can I put a few questions to you. How much are you convinced that the creation of temporary jobs will be able to help the people who might not be able to get anywhere after the temporary jobs cease? And also along the line, the same with the vocational training which Government has a lot of faith in it, but we have reports just before the Policy Address that many of these trainees are actually not able to find jobs. So jobs ultimately is the answer, isn't it?

Mr Tung: Well, as I said yesterday that the ultimate solution of alleviating poverty is from better education for our people and also the continued and strong expansion of our economy, because that is the fundamental solution to the problem. And in both these areas the Government will continue to do the best we can. But in the meantime we are faced with a huge structural change of our economy brought about by the involvement in IT, brought about by the globalisation of the economy, and brought about by the new immigrants having difficulty working through into the community, and brought about by our community getting older every day.

So all these things need to be addressed and the measures we have taken, in part are short term, but on the other hand they are also necessary for the community. We are trying to do more greening of Hong Kong, we are trying to clean up Hong Kong, we are trying to clean the beaches of Hong Kong. All these will be very important to us. And we are trying to provide more services for the elderly and we are trying to provide teacher assistants at schools. These are all very fundamental and we would hope some would be temporary jobs, others may become permanent jobs. But at the end of the day, the only way to solve this problem fundamentally, is through the expansion of the economy and providing better education for everybody.

Host: Thank you very much indeed, caller. I suppose just one additional question there is, the politicians have said, why not draw a poverty line?

Mr Tung: Well, Nick, you know a whole lot of people try to draw a line on poverty. What is the line on poverty? The United Nations has a medium household income 50 per cent, then for Hong Kong it means $5,000. The World Bank says to one person, one or two US dollars a day is income. Now, from our point of view, we think what we need to do is not trying to find an artificial line, it is really trying to target our efforts to those who are really in need.

Nick, in Hong Kong we have a good social security network and on top of that our housing programme and our hospital care programme have always been quite good. So it is there already. What we need to do is to make sure that there are people out there who for some reason or another are not receiving all this help and what we need to do is to make sure that all the people that need help would get the help they want.

Host: One of the problems that the caller just now mentioned was the retraining and the fact that after retraining many people have found it very difficult to find jobs, particularly middle-aged people, especially women and the lower educated. And the next caller we have on the line wants to discuss this problem.

Caller: I would like to ask you, continue about the poverty gap and the long term unemployed. You speak about retraining for the poor but we have continually asked for basic labour legislation. People want to work, they want to work for jobs that can sustain our most basic livelihood. We don't want the CSSA, $1,605 a month. Why is it that - we've continually asked the Government to ensure that employers hire us with a basic minimum wage, for example $6,000, which is hardly a lot - why is it that the Government has persistently refused this?

Mr Tung: Minimum wage is something that may sound good but what happens is that very often, having a minimum wage - it depends on where you set it; if you set it rather high, then what will happen is that some of the jobs will be then exported again and will in fact then create unemployment. So these are the things that need to be thought through very carefully. And Hong Kong's traditional success has been a very market driven economy and we have been reasonably successful. We are in the midst of a structural adjustment but we do see that unemployment is declining from the high of 6.3 per cent to 4.9 per cent, and I would hope that with the economy continuing to expand, the job situation will continue to be better. So we feel that we want to do things to help and the concern is that if you do impose minimum wage, it might have the reverse effect.

Now, insofar as retraining is concerned, of course there are cases where after retraining there are people who can't find jobs and it is obviously an area of concern for us. But let me tell you that in one of the surveys the Retraining Board did recently for those who are security guards looking after residential buildings or office buildings, in fact the retraining programme, after retraining the employment rate is somewhere around 80 per cent, so there are some success stories also. So what we need to do is to make sure that more and more become success stories and the Government will work with the Retraining Board to make sure there will be more success stories.

Caller: Mr Tung, I just want to say that each family in Hong Kong now spend too much money on transportation. Every month they may spend $2,000 on that. I hope the Government can subsidise the transportation fees. Say they pay 90 per cent of the ticket-fee to the train on the MTR, in that case then the citizens can be released from the heavy laden burden.

Mr Tung: Transport cost in Hong Kong is high to those who cannot afford it.

Caller: To most of the people.

Mr Tung: On the other hand, for instance on the buses, Government do not charge tax on the fuel and we try to do as much as we can already. I hear what you say. I am not sure there is a great deal the Government can do. We recently privatised the MTR and hope the MTR will become more efficient and more responsive to the market and more responsive to the needs of the people. So let's see how this moves ahead.

Host: Mr Tung, you say you are going to look again at Electronic Road Pricing. I can remember back in 198 .. actually announced by the then Secretary for Transport, Alan Scott. We are still looking in the year 2000.

Mr Tung: Well, when it was first announced by Alan Scott it wasn't very well received and we put it on the back burner. But what is happening now is that in the longer term, if the number of vehicles on the roads continue to expand, it is more than just a question of congestion on the roads, it is also a question of environmental protection. So would it be a better way to try to create better environmental protection by charging taxes based on the miles travelled by each automobile. And these are the areas where we need to look at but we won't make any decision without consulting the public at large once more.

Host: I see it work very well in Singapore. You only have to look across to them to see how well it works.

Mr Tung: I know it.

Host: I think we may have another caller on the line. Good morning.

Caller: I have a question regarding the housing. Last time you addressed that there will be some public housing scheme, you mentioned for ownership and there was some money given to people so that they can buy their houses. But still, people are not able to get their houses. A lot of the people of Hong Kong live under rental housing. When you compare with Singapore, almost 100% of the population over there have their own housing in Singapore, whereas in Hong Kong a lot of people, millions of people, are still without their own houses. So, what you can do about it?

Mr Tung: Well, in 1997 there were 150,000 families waiting in line to get on to rental housing for seven and a half years. But we have made real efforts in this area and I hope and I believe this is achievable. By 2003, the waiting time will be shrunk to three years and obviously the number of families waiting will be substantially reduced. It is a continuing effort on our part to make sure that more and more people will be adequately housed and this will be a continuing effort. At the same time we do have this Home Ownership Scheme to encourage people to buy homes and either physically buy our government built Home Ownership Scheme homes or alternatively to obtain a loan if you are qualified, $600,000 or whatever the amount is, to buy in the private sector. So all these things are continuing effort on our part.

Caller: No, my question is that people who get, say, housing rental, why don't that rental system go into the Home Ownership Scheme, because there are still people who can't even come up with $100,000 to buy a Home Ownership? When they get the public housing for rental, why that rental housing is not converted into Home Ownership so that people can easily afford to have their own housing? This is what the Singapore Government is doing.

Mr Tung: I am not quite sure what exactly Singapore Government is doing but I can tell you this, that over the last two years 50,000 people who were previously living in rental housing decided to buy, with the assistance of the Government, to buy the unit that they have been living in. So this has happened, 50,000 families have done that and this is a continuing effort. We will probably be doing it at about 25,000 units every year.

Caller: No, I would urge you to do some more comprehensive plans so that more and more people are able to get cheaper housing schemes, so that more people can have their own housing rather than spending such a high level on private housing rents.

Host: Mr Tung, in response to an earlier question you said, I hear you. That seems to be a bit of a theme of this Policy Address: less of the grand vision, more of the listening. Does this represent a kind of change three years on, more of a different approach to your leadership?

Mr Tung: Every community moving forward must have a long term vision and we do have a long term vision. And now having developed the long term vision, the question then is: how do you get there. For instance, we want Hong Kong to become like what New York is in North and South America, and London is for Europe. How do you get there? And I highlighted the strength of Hong Kong, which is that we have wonderful infrastructure - roads, railways, telecommunications; we have a wonderfully efficient government; and also we have, protected by the Basic Law, the freedoms we enjoy, the rule of law which is very strong here.

And then we say to ourselves, no, there are things we need to do somewhat more to become the world class city and which are the areas. And I highlighted last year, education and sustainable development. Last year a great deal of my Policy Speech was about sustainable development. This year, picking up the Education Commission Report, it is about education. So it is a continuation of what we have been trying to do over the last three or four years.

Host: And continuing, we also have a caller on the line who wants to stay with the concept of sustainable development and the environment.

Caller: I heard Mr Ho there earlier talking about the environment and I am on the same subject. It is mainly about the recycling in these waste-tips. You know I have attended government talks on the thing too and seem to get lip-service a lot and I am just wondering why people in these departments just can't get out and make some gutsy decisions on the environment and start the ball rolling ..... why not encourage private enterprise to do the recycling? They can put up the money, they can put up the labour and save the government a lot of landfill. All that government has to do is to give them a bit of land on the way but the government doesn't seem to want to get in there and make that decision. And I am just wondering, is it a problem within departments, sort of taking this responsibility?

Mr Tung: Like you, I am also very impatient and a whole lot of people in Hong Kong, including those in the government, are very impatient for things to happen but I want to tell you that this is a long term issue. For instance, on this question of recycling solid waste, the first thing we need to do, because in the recycling, for instance for domestic waste, we are right now only 10 per cent. We should be pushing this up to 50 per cent, 60 per cent. Well, why are we not there yet?

Well first, to start with we need to educate the public - what is this all about, how do you separate the waste. This is an effort in itself. And then where is the land for separating the waste.

Caller: But you do have it.

Mr Tung: How are the garbage trucks being organised to collect the waste. And all these things need to be looked at very, very carefully and then we are not going to push anything out which is haphazard. And I want to assure you that the solid waste treatment issue now has the attention of the entire government and I am hopeful that in the course of next year we will be pushing out solid plans as to how we deal with this issue, the recycling issue. How much of this then goes into incineration, knowing that there will be environmental considerations, negative environmental considerations maybe on incineration, and then how much of land needed to be taken up to accommodate the rest of the waste, and that also has resource implications. So we need to look through all these things carefully and I promise you that in the course of next year we will have some solid plans out.

Host: ..... Quite a few questions on the chatroom, on the internet, some very badly written, I must say. But the general gist seems to be, if I can summarise some of them: they are worried about unemployment, they are worried about the property prices - some are worried about high property prices, some low property prices. And another person writing in the chatroom asking about what are the short term benefits from the Address. But generally, worried about unemployment, worried about property prices. What can you offer these people?

Mr Tung: Well, insofar as property prices are concerned I'd like to restate that first, the Government's objective is for those who need public assistance on rental housing. We are determined to reduce the time that is in the queue, so by 2003 this will be down to three years. And we are very confident this can be done and we will do it.

And secondly is that we do not like the property prices to go up and then fall down like a yo-yo. Either way is no good for us. We recognise the importance of stable property prices which is very important to the development of the economy in Hong Kong as a whole. It is important also to many people who have invested maybe their lifelong savings into the purchasing of a housing unit. So we are very mindful of this and we are very conscious of the need for stable property prices. And of course Government has no way to regulate or intervene to cure short term oscillation of the market, but on the other hand, being the largest landlord in Hong Kong, obviously what we do will have a significant influence on the long term property prices.

Thirdly, I would say for those who can't quite afford it but wish to have ownership of apartment units, we are pushing ahead with the Home Ownership Scheme in two ways. One is physically buying the units being built by the Housing Authority and the other is through first time loan schemes they can go into the private market to buy these apartment units. So all these things are being pushed through and the objective to us is quite clear as I have stated.

Insofar as unemployment is concerned, the longer term solution to unemployment is through education, education, education and also the expansion of our economy. And on both fronts we are doing a great deal to make sure this is happening. And then in the short term, of course, in the Policy Speech I define what we can do. But I would like to emphasise, actually over the last two and a half years to three years, faced with the downturn of the economy caused by the financial turmoil in Asia, actually the Government really did a lot in terms of reducing taxes, freezing charges and the reduced rates and so on and so forth. It is HK$40 billion we have done this. And why? We want to put money back into the pockets of the people to help them and to help the economy.

And the other is that we are investing huge amounts of money in infrastructure - hospitals, roads, railways and the schools - on the one hand to improve the quality of life in Hong Kong, on the other hand really to stimulate the economy through all these activities, and it is all showing through now. So we are doing a great deal and I would hope that as the economy continues to expand and the external environment looks reasonably all right - although there are some worrying signs out there it looks reasonably all right - so I would hope that with the sustained recovery of the economy, unemployment will continue to drop.

Host: Mr Tung, in your closing remarks you noted that there would seem to be a mood shift in the community, more criticism, more scepticism. Perhaps these arise out of legitimate concerns from the community and there have been some suggestions that maybe your concerns about such kinds of expressions arise from a lack of understanding of the feeling on the ground, and we have a caller who wants to talk about this.

Caller: Mr Chief Executive, good morning.

Mr Tung: Good morning, how are you?

Caller: All right, thank you. Well, I am a Hong Kong born Chinese. I really wholly support the rule of the Chinese Government in Hong Kong. I support the SAR Government. But just I am very disappointed by your administration. For example, one day I was asked by an expatriate, she told me that in the past few years even the colonial government has opened up channels for people to express their ideas to the Governor and the Governor would respond to the voices of the Legislative Council, the people, directly. But you have cut out those direct receptions with reporters and you have also removed those monthly meetings with the Legislative Council Members.

You see, those are the elected representatives of the people, they voice out for the people's opinions and you are only selected by 400 members of the elite. So do you really want to hear the voices of the people? We are very disappointed by your administration. I have no doubt that you are a sincere person but don't just speak, you have to work it out. Please agree on attending monthly meetings with the LegCo, the representatives of us, and also on TV/radio programmes every month.

Mr Tung: First of all, I want to assure you that I try very, very hard to listen to the voices of all different sectors of the community. I am glad to be appearing on this radio show and talking to you today.

Secondly is that I do appear in front of the legislature three times a year formally, and I have many informal discussions with them throughout every month, and I assure you this will continue to be the case in the future. There is a lot of dialogue going on.

And thirdly is that, you know, the Government has 370 advisory bodies and we very often listen to views through these advisory bodies.

And fourthly, through my district visits and so on and so forth, I try very hard to listen to the views of the community at large. It is not just I alone who is doing this, other Government colleagues are also doing this. So I just want to assure you that all this is being done. But I will welcome yourself, if you have any specific views on any subject, write to me, call me, and send me an e-mail, I'd be very happy to discuss these issues with you.

Caller: Well, Mr Chief Executive, I just want you to save your time from attending those ribbon-cutting ceremonies, those banquets by business tycoons and save one hour per month to listen directly to the voices of the people of Hong Kong. Can you just agree on this please?

Mr Tung: Well, I can assure you I do more than one hour every month listening to the voices of the people already.

Caller: Direct interaction. Direct interaction.

Host: Thank you very much indeed, caller, a fair point. Mr Tung, I think there is quite a bit of speculation this morning about what you said in your Policy Address about responsibility of the top officials; accountability - held accountable for what they do. Obviously a lot of thought goes immediately to the shame of the housing officials and they took the necessary action, some would say. What is your plan? Are you simply going to sack these top officials if they don't do their job properly?

Mr Tung: Not at all.

Host: So how are they going to be held accountable?

Mr Tung: First of all, let me say this, that there are voices in the community. You know just now I was told I do not listen enough to the voices of the community. In fact over the last two or three months in the preparation of the Policy Address, I met many members of the community and invariably this subject was raised to me that there needs to be more accountability of the senior officials. And I hear the voices of the people and this is in response to that. Obviously to do this I have discussed this issue thoroughly with the Chief Secretary, the Financial Secretary and the other senior government officials, and I think we all share the view that this is the direction we should really be moving towards. And we will move towards this direction but rather cautiously because it is a very far ranging change for us. This, of course, will involve the senior officials, it will not affect the rest of the civil servants at all, one way or the other.

Host: Are you saying they will have to pay for their mistakes?

Mr Tung: No, what I am saying is that because it is so complicated there needs to be very careful and comprehensive review as to how the senior officials in the future - if we do decide to go in that direction - how they would be employed, what are their responsibilities in the process of formulating and then implementing policies and this needs to be looked through very, very carefully.

Host: Would you agree to bring in outside professional managers then, to run these bureaux?

Mr Tung: Well, I would say this, that my own thinking is that by and large I will continue to rely on the civil servants we have today, because by and large over the last three and a half years they have done wonders for Hong Kong. Obviously, in selective areas there will be experts, specialists and so on and so forth if the need does arise.

Caller: Good morning, this is, I think, the third time I talk to you on this programme. This time I would like to ask you about what is your policy on the population in Hong Kong. You know every time in your Policy Address you have provided several types of additional services to cope with the growth in the community. But you know the population growth in Hong Kong is, more or less, more than just to overcome all the things that you provide, so the actual benefits that the community can benefit is no more or less; it can be said it's none. So what is your comment on your population policy in Hong Kong?

Mr Tung: Well, Hong Kong's population is growing somewhat faster than we desire and I was asked earlier, on the Chinese programme, about the 54,000 that come into Hong Kong from the Mainland. And I reminded the caller at that time that yes, there are these 54,000 coming every year but they are here for family reunion purposes and you know family reunion, family values, are very important values that we all share and then we need to take care of this. And additionally, half of these people who are coming in are children and as our community gets older these children will help us in the longer term. So we need to look at the positive side as well.

And having said that, in our future planning we have to take all these into account as we move forward, and we all have to work a lot harder to keep our economy expanding a lot more to take care of everybody. I said yesterday, the fundamental future of ourselves is to keep on expanding the economy so that we can have enough to look after everybody.

Host: Thank you very much indeed, C H Tung, the Chief Executive on RTHK's special English language phone in.

End/Thursday, October 12, 2000

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