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Following is the transcript (English portion) of the press conference by the Chief Executive, Mr Tung Chee Hwa, at the Conference Hall, Central Government Offices New Annex today (September 22):

Reporter : In making the appointment of Mrs Chow, you brought the Liberal Party back into the coalition after its Chairman James Tien resigned from your cabinet, why would you want to do that ? Why would bringing in someone of divergent views into your cabinet weaken the executive-led Government?

Chief Executive: Well, I think I have spoken earlier on in Chinese the answer. I would repeat again for you. When I first considered the members I should invite to join ExCo more than a year ago when the second term started, the key considerations were how the executive branch of the Government and the legislative branch of the Government can work better. That was the principal consideration. And under that consideration, I invited James Tien to join. Today I think along a similar way because it is important for the executive branch and the legislature to work together well. And it is through that sort of consideration that I decided to invite Selina Chow to join ExCo.

Reporter: You said you didn't want to weaken the executive-led Government by bringing in some of the divergent views in response to my question. But why would having someone of divergent views, in your opinion, weaken the executive-led Government ?

Chief Executive: I think there are members of ExCo who have divergent views. I think it's healthy. But once a decision is made to move ahead, we all abide by the collective responsibility that we all share together.

Reporter : I was wondering if Mr Tung could tell us whether you are planning any other changes to ExCo in the coming months. Specifically, are you considering adding Victor Fung ?

Chief Executive : The answer to your second question is "no". And to the first question, as I said earlier on, I thought the best time to make any major changes is really after the Legislative Council election next year, which will be next September actually. I said earlier on that after July 1, I did think very seriously about reorganising ExCo, whether to do it now, to do it right away, but I came to the conclusion that amongst other reasons, which I have mentioned already, that we need to give this arrangement, which we started last year, more time to work through. And in any case, the best time to think about reorganisation is after next year's Legislative Council election.

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

End/Monday, September 22, 2003

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( Floor / Cantonese / Putonghua / English )