***********
Following is the transcript of the media session by the Financial Secretary, Mr Henry Tang, on the latest unemployment rate at the lobby of the Central Government Offices (West Wing) this afternoon (August 18):
Financial Secretary: The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for May to July is 8.7%, which is a 0.1% increase compared with the previous three months. The underemployment rate has improved to 4.2%, which is an improvement of 0.1% from 4.3%. I believe that the unemployment rate is beginning to stabilise. The increase has moderated and therefore it tends to become more stabilised. We also believe that this moderation shows that our economy is beginning to show some signs of recovery and I hope we can realise this recovery and see improving figures some time soon.
Question: How much of the boom that we're seeing in tourism is going to help tackle unemployment? Are we going to be heavily relying on Mainland tourists?
Financial Secretary: We are seeing a significant increase in inbound tourism. In fact, the airport is showing it is almost back to pre-SARS levels in terms of the number of passengers per day. We are also beginning to see some rebound in the long-haul tourists. Although the long-haul tourists will not come back as soon or as fast as the Mainland tourists, we will be a very important tourist destination for Mainland tourists. They have a very keen interest in seeing Hong Kong after its return to China. We welcome them because they are now our highest spending per capita tourists, but I also feel that we are still attractive to many overseas tourists as many of our trade fairs and other kinds of facilities are conducive to attracting visitors from all over the world.
Question: Any improvement ...........?
Financial Secretary: Like I said the increase has moderated and the unemployment rate has stabilised. So I am cautiously optimistic that we are now coming out of the unemployment peak. However, because unemployment figures are a lag indicator, it is difficult to say at this point in time whether next month when I announce the figures for June to August it will show an improvement.
Question: Can you confirm that you have established a taskforce on sales tax?
Financial Secretary: There is an internal taskforce that is studying a general sales tax of some sort. We have just started working and we have not come to any conclusions.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
End/Monday, August 18, 2003
NNNN
