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Following is the transcript (English portion) of a 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 (January 19) afternoon:
Financial Secretary: The unemployment rate for the three months ended December 2003 continues to improve to 7.3%, that is a 0.2 percentage point improvement from the previous period. The total unemployed persons stands at 253,000, which is 11,400 less than the previous period. Also the total number of employed persons continue to increase to 3,236,000 persons. As to which industries show the most improvement, since there will be a press release, I won't go into details here.
Reporter: What about the trend for the next few months? Is it going to drop even further?
Financial Secretary: It is very hard to say whether or how much (the unemployment rate) is going to drop further. We have seen an improvement in sentiment, and therefore many of the improvements are from sectors which have seen the benefit of these improvements in sentiment. We hope that through a combination of government efforts and private sector employment, there will be further enhancement in the employment situation.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Monday, January 19, 2004
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