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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Chief Executive, Mr Tung Chee Hwa, at a media session at the ground floor lobby of the Central Government Offices (Main Wing) today (May 5):
Because of newspaper reports, we have received enquiries as to what our next step should be in our fight against SARS. Firstly, we are pleased that the number of confirmed daily SARS cases has reduced to single digit. This is a result of the efforts of all the citizens in Hong Kong, of various Government Departments as well as the Hospital Authority and frontline medical and nursing workers. And let me remind everybody, this is after all, still a new virus and things could change. There is too much we do not understand. Therefore we must remain alert. We must keep on trying. We cannot let down our guard. In the coming week, we will begin discussion in earnest with WHO. Our hope is eventually to persuade WHO to lift the travel advisory against us. WHO obviously has their criteria as to how we will move ahead. But I believe, whether we succeed or not, ultimately depends on whether we can continue to bring the number of daily confirmed SARS cases further down from today's single-digit number. Therefore we really need to continue to work very hard.
In the meantime, as we begin to contain the SARS virus, we are looking at what we are going to do as a next step. Firstly, as a result of this SARS virus, we recognise how important environmental hygiene is to all of us. Hong Kong is really a very crowded place; unless we sort out environmental hygiene, we may have similar types of attacks, such as what we are facing today with SARS. I have asked the Chief Secretary for Administration to lead a cross-bureau, inter-departmental task force to develop short-term and long-term measures to promote public education, to see how we can do a better job with town planning, the design of the buildings, the maintenance and the management of buildings and how we can remove the black spots all over the city, as well as illegal structures in order to ensure that we have a clean, hygienic, and good and healthy living environment.
As we begin to contain the SARS virus, we really need to get the community going again, get the economy going again. I have asked the Financial Secretary to head a task force for that purpose and make suggestions to me as to how we can move ahead on the economic front. The Government has earmarked HK$1 billion for this purpose and in the next few weeks we will be asking the legislature for the funding. Our plan is that as soon as the WHO lifts the travel advisory, the whole of Hong Kong will be involved in a promotion exercise about Hong Kong. Our message is to say that SARS is now being contained, Hong Kong is a safe and environmentally friendly and hygienic place and that travellers, tourists and investors should feel safe to come to Hong Kong to stay, be tourists or to invest. Hong Kong's still the best place to do business with the mainland and Hong Kong is still the best place to set up regional headquarters.
Since the SARS virus came to Hong Kong, what we have seen is that there is a possibility that there might be other infectious disease, other than SARS coming to Hong Kong in the future. And because of this, the Government has begun to study establishing an organisation similar to those around the world and on the Mainland - a CDC-type of organisation to fight and prevent infectious diseases. The Hong Kong Jockey Club charity foundation has in principle pledged HK$500 million to support the Government's effort to establish a CDC-type organisation and to support medical research, training of the professional staff as well as the civic education area. In fact, since the SARS virus came to Hong Kong, we also have seen that the universities here in Hong Kong have done a really outstanding job in areas of medical research. And actually what they have done has been very much recognised and, in some cases, acclaimed by their counterparts overseas. We are going to ask the Legislative Council for HK$500 million of funding to establish a foundation to encourage the universities here in Hong Kong to continue this fine work to go beyond what they are doing today, whether it is the fight against SARS or other infectious diseases. And we will welcome whoever from the community may want to donate into this foundation. The above work will be looked after by Dr E K Yeoh.
In the fight against SARS in the last seven to eight weeks, we are pleased to see the involvement of the community at large out there. Of course there's still a lot of work to do in order to bring more support out of the community and how we can best use the power and the determination of the community together to fight the disease. I have asked Patrick Ho, the Secretary for Home Affairs to take up the responsibility for this work.
Finally as you all know, Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta has a very special and very close relationship, and if we are going to win this battle, we need to work closely with Guangdong Province. I have arranged, one more time, to meet with the Governor of Guangdong Province during the course of this week to discuss how we can work together as we begin to contain the SARS disease. How we can work together to move ahead our relationship and to return the lives of our respective areas to normal.
Ladies and gentlemen, over the last seven or eight weeks we have done a lot together and I would like to once again thank those medical workers in the front line, thank the civil servants -- because of you we are now moving ahead. I would also like to thank all the people of Hong Kong for really moving ahead and showing this tremendous spirit of wanting Hong Kong to succeed. And because of all this I am getting more and more confident that we are moving in the right direction. And let me say this one more time: yes, we have made some headway but there is still a lot that needs to be done. At this moment, we cannot let down our guard. Our most important work is still to make sure that the number of daily new SARS cases must continue to drop. Let's all work towards that. Thank you very much.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion)
End/Monday, May 5, 2003
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