Press Release
 
 

 Email this articleGovernment Homepage

Financial Secretary's transcript

**************

Following is the transcript (English part) of the Financial Secretary, Mr Antony Leung, at a media stand-up session after meeting with political parties at LegCo Building today (October 11):

Reporter : (the nature of the meeting, sale or persuasion ?)

FS: Neither of the above. It really is, we were discussing the issues of Hong Kong, all the common interests of the Hong Kong people in a very sincere and friendly environment. I think it is actually a very good occasion or a very good example that the executive and the legislative branch of the Government can really work together and so on this basis we met again for the second time since we first met on Tuesday. So I think it is obviously appropriate for the Government to offer a response to what they have proposed on Tuesday. As you can see, in the Policy Address and actually in the subsequent events, the Government in general has responded to six of the seven proposals of the political parties. Obviously there are still differences in the amounts that are involved and so we agreed, since we only have received the proposals on Tuesday, that we would go back and consider some of the issues. I am afraid that I may not be able to tell you which are the issues that we actually considered but clearly, the dialogue will not stop and we, ie, the political parties and I have agreed that we'll be meeting periodically to discuss various issues that concern Hong Kong because I really believe that if the executive and legislative branches of the Government work very closely together, and with the support of our people, we can really surmount almost any difficulty and help Hong Kong to move forward.

Reporter : (whether the meeting held immediately after the Chief Executive's Q & A session indicates that the Chief Executive failed to get his message across)

FS : Not at all. I actually see the other way round. The fact that we have taken action on six of the seven proposals of the political parties, even though the proposals were received only on Tuesday shows that the Government actually had been communicating very effectively with the community including the parties so that a lot of the proposals that the parties have submitted to us were heard by the Government actually on other occasions. As you know, the Government had been communicating with the political parties and various sectors of the community in the past few months very frequently and actually on various occasions. It actually shows that we have been communicating extremely well with the community and the political parties. But clearly, the communication of the Government with the community and the parties should not be a prized annual event. It should be a continuous process and I have agreed with the political parties that I'll be communicating with them regularly. So I hope people can see that the relationship between the executive branch and the legislative branch of the Government is improving and we are committed to work together.

(Please also refer to the Chinese transcript)

End/Thursday, October 11, 2001

NNNN


Email this article