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Following is the transcript (English portion) of the press conference by the newly-appointed Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology, Mr John Tsang Chun-wah, at the Central Government Offices this evening (August 4):

Reporter: what is your priority when you took up office and how are you going to promote the business environment as well as the information technology environment?

SCIT: I think the first order of business is really to talk to my colleagues and see what the priorities are. But obviously CEPA (Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement) is one of the issues that has been discussed quite extensively and this is something that I will take up as a matter of urgency and I will try to do everything we can to operationalise CEPA as quickly as possible and flesh it out into something that we can implement in the shortest time period.

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

End/Monday, August 4, 2003

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Floor/ Cantonese/ Putonghua/ English