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Following is the transcript of the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Donald Tsang's meet-the-media session in Beijing this (February 19) evening:

Reporter: Mr Tsang, first of all, what would you be reporting to Central Government leaders? And, secondly, what matters of concern would you be discussing with relative ministries?

Mr Tsang: Well, I am coming here, this is a regular visit. I would, first of all, be very fortunate be able to see the Premier on Thursday morning, and Vice-Premier Qian on Thursday afternoon. Hopefully, I would be reporting to them my own observations on Hong Kong peoples' feeling, how they react to the challenges of the economic downturn locally, and how the Civil Service had been reacting to the current situation. Hopefully, I will update them on the progress of the accountability exercise. I would be meeting, of course, the Hong Kong and Macao Office and deal with very specific issues dealt with by various bureaux -- Transport Bureau, Security Bureau and so on. I hope to have this opportunity to widen my network of contact in Beijing. This has been the wishes of the Chief Executive, so I am spending here three to four days for that purpose.

Reporter: What are the matters of mutual concerns......can you elaborate on that?

Mr Tsang: The important thing is we want to make sure that against the economic slowdown, we would be able to find areas of joint co-operation, areas in which we would be able to help Hong Kong to overcome the current problems. You know we have been working on the cross-border issues, working on increasing the tourism, working on complementary infrastructure developments. All these are substantive issues we would be discussing. Well, I would be updating you more.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion.)

End/Tuesday, February 19, 2002

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