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Following is a transcript of the Secretary for Environment, Transport and Works, Dr Sarah Liao with the media after attending the "2002 Better Air Quality in Asian and Pacific Rim Cities Conference" this morning (December 16):

Reporter: You talked about how Hong Kong was working with Pearl River Delta to combat air pollution and also explained about the emission trading pilot scheme, how much does it cost and how to enforce it...?

SETW: It's a pilot scheme. I had talked about emission trading on many occasions. And there was a full Legislative Council debate on emission trading. It is an issue that cannot be explained in one minute. Indeed we had started the process, it's called a pilot scheme so it is not for a long term. Legislation would be up to the Mainland to deal with it. But we want to test it out just like the other seven locations in China. We would be part of that programme. In doing so, we are actually finding trading partners specifically. So it is a deal between A and B, rather than an open market and then we could test out how this would work within the One Country Two Systems.

Reporter: On water resources among cities in Pearl River Delta that... do you think regional talks involving Hong Kong should ...?

SETW: We actually have a forum where Guangdong and Hong Kong experts plus administrators had constant conversation and they held a meeting not too long ago. But as I had mentioned many times, water resource is a scarce commodity and as the city grows bigger and activities are more intense, there would be higher demand on clean water. That is why we felt and also the Guangdong Government felt that it was so important to have a programme to protect the water resource around the catchments areas for the Dongjiang. And Xinfengjiang Reservoir is what they had considered one of the best water quality sources there and of course we would hope that all the water one gather would be of the same high quality. But I'm not specifically referring to this particular Reservoir as a point but for the whole of Guangdong we really need to be conscious of the fact that we need to save water.

Reporter: Do you think Hong Kong should have a say in these...?

SETW: Well, in fact we have a very good collaborative team and in the recent water resources protection programme, Hong Kong had actually been very active in giving ideas and working with the Guangdong government. So we are working on it and that's why I've been telling people to save water. And that is the ultimate thing that the community can do.

(Please also refer to the Chinese part of the transcript)

End/Monday, December 16, 2002

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