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Following is the transcript (English portion) of the Financial Secretary, Mr Henry Tang, speaking to the press on the latest unemployment rate at the lobby of the Central Government Offices (West Wing) today (October 20):
Financial Secretary: I am pleased to announce that the unemployment figures for the third quarter of this year, meaning from July to September, has improved from 8.6 percent to 8.3 percent. Under-employment rate has also improved from 4 percent to 3.6 percent. This improvement is certainly good news to us, but we are not complacent about the structural unemployment and the structural change that we are going through, which means that unemployment will continue to be a challenge for us. Many of the improvements have been in the travel service, retail and restaurant related industries. We feel that it is partially because of the increase in tourism, but also partially because of the improvement in the economy.
One piece of good news is that a lot of the new vacancies showing in our Labour Department comes from small to medium enterprises, and many of them are new companies looking for people to fill employment. That is a welcome news for us.
Reporter: Do you expect the rate to continue to fall and will the government come up with any new idea ......?
Financial Secretary: Like I said earlier, unemployment will continue to be a challenge. We are pleased with the latest figure, but we are not complacent about how to further improve our economy in all aspects. We will continue to create more jobs so that more people will be able to work.
Reporter: Will the ......of the government do that?
Financial Secretary: I will be actually going to LegCo to make a statement on Wednesday where the economic situation will be one of the issues that I will be talking about.
Reporter: Do you think that 0.3 percent drop which is pretty big for the season in a one time situation, because of the individual visits? And do you expect the unemployment rate will go back up?
Financial Secretary: The improvement this time I believe is a combination of improvement in our economy and the influx of tourists, whether they are in groups or individual tourists from the Mainland. With this combination of tourism as well as improvement in the economy, I have reasons to be cautiously optimistic that we can further improve. However, as I have said, unemployment will continue to be a challenge for the whole community. It is not just a government problem.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Monday, October 20, 2003
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