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Following is the transcript (English portion) of the media session by the Financial Secretary, Mr Antony Leung, after the meeting of the Task Force on Employment at the Central Government Offices (West Wing) this (November 12) afternoon:

Reporter: Mr Leung, can you tell us if you have come up with any concrete proposals in this first meeting after the revamp?

Financial Secretary: This is the first time after we reconstitute the Task Force on Employment. We spent most of the time reviewing the background, looking at the economic situation in Hong Kong, looking at the labour situation in Hong Kong. We spent a lot of time also going through the past achievements. And then we devoted a considerable amount of time on the specific proposals that members would have. So this time we actually collected quite a number of proposals from the members. But what the Government would do next is to study some of these ideas, prepare papers and then discuss it with the members again. So there isn't really a lot of so-called "concrete proposals" coming out, but we solicited a lot of very good ideas.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)

End/Tuesday, November 12, 2002

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