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Following is the transcript (English part) of a media session given by the Financial Secretary, Mr Antony Leung, after attending the Appointment Ceremony of the Student Ambassador Programme cum Hong Kong Young Ambassador Scheme at the Government House today (August 20):

Reporter : (factors affecting the slight increase in the unemployment rate and measures to tackle the problem)

FS: The current worsening of the unemployment situation is a result of two factors. One is the worsening external environment. Secondly, it's the restructuring of the economy, from industrial economy to a knowledge economy. These two factors contributed to the slight increase in our unemployment rate from 4.6% to 4.7%. Clearly the Government has to do a number of things including improving the environment for doing business in Hong Kong and secondly, providing opportunities for all our citizens so that they can pursue life-long learning. It is through these two fundamental issues that we can somehow improve the economy in Hong Kong.

Reporter : When do you expect the employment rate to pick up again?

FS : This depends obviously on a number of factors, one of which, as I have said, is on the external economy. And as we are observing, the external economy is still worsening. We see the numbers issued by, say, the authorities in Taiwan and Singapore. Indeed, their numbers actually are worse than ours.

Reporter : (reasons for the higher unemployment rate)

FS: As I said, the increase in unemployment is really a result of two combining factors. One is the economic cycle outside of Hong Kong which obviously we are seeing that a lot of economies around the world are really slowing down. Some of them are actually kind of receding into recession. The economic restructuring of Hong Kong, from industrial economy to knowledge economy is on-going. So these two factors somehow combined and contributed to the increase in our unemployment.

(Please also refer to the Chinese transcript.)

End/Monday, August 20, 2001

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