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Following is the speech by the Secretary for Information Technology and Broadcasting, Mrs Carrie Yau, at the Presentation Ceremony of ISO 9001 Certificate Awards by the Hong Kong Quality Assurance Agency to the Information Technology Services Department today (December 19):

Mr Lau, Dr Ng, ladies and gentlemen,

Thank you for inviting me to this happy occasion. It is always a pleasure to meet colleagues and clients in a less formal context.

I must first of all congratulate the Information Technology Services Department on being awarded a second ISO 9001 certification. This is a just reward for your continuous effort to provide excellent services for users. I hope you will keep up with this spirit and your good work.

Providing service is an important activity of a government. Information technology offers almost unlimited opportunity for expanding the scope of services and increasing the speed and efficiency with which they are delivered.

With the rapid development of IT, our next major goal is to transform our services electronically. By doing so, we intend to increase our ability to provide services which are customer-oriented, value-added and user-friendly, with access through a single channel - the one-stop shop.

The launching of the Electronic Service Delivery Scheme brings us one step closer to our vision of an e-government. More government services will go online in the near future. Government forms will be converted electronically for submission via the Internet. Within the Government, we will promote the concept of a paperless government, encourage the adoption of electronic transactions between departments, and enhance our internal IT infrastructure.

Rome was not built in a day, and neither is an e-government. But we are confident that we are on the right track and making good progress.

By placing ourselves at the forefront of IT development, we hope to set an example to the community at large. At the end of the day, we hope to build a knowledge-based e-community and make e-commerce a norm rather than an intimidating rarity.

All these initiatives require strong support both within the government and in the wider community. We look forward to your continued cooperation in taking forward this important work.

May I take this festive opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

End/Tuesday, December 19, 2000

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