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The following is a transcript (English part) of the stand-up briefing by the Financial Secretary, Mr Antony Leung, after officiating at the Cyberport Topping-out Ceremony today (November 28):

Reporter: Could you talk about how the confirmed US recession affects Hong Kong?

Financial Secretary: I don't think it'll have much impact on Hong Kong because we have been expecting that the US economy was going down and would be in a recession. We actually have for quite some time said that there was a worldwide slowdown in the economy. So yesterday's confirmation would not actually aggravate the problem, it just confirmed all we've been predicting so far.

(Please also refer to the Chinese text.)

End/Wednesday, November 28, 2001

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