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The following is a transcript of remarks (English portion) by the Secretary for Economic Development and Labour, Mr Stephen Ip, who spoke to the reporters after visiting the Job Fair organised by the Labour Department at the Maritime Square for the food and beverage industry today (July 14):

Reporter: I understand next week there is going to be a release of the unemployment rate of Hong Kong. Could you make any prediction about how this is compared to last year, in terms of Hong Kong's economy on employment?

Stephen Ip: The unemployment rate now is 7%. But of course there are many graduates looking for jobs. You can see there are many young graduates here looking for jobs. Over the next few months there will be pressure on the employment situation. But of course tourism is doing very well and tourism helps retailing, catering, restaurants and hotels. They are all doing very well. The Labour Department on average receives about 1,000 jobs every working day. And over the past six months, the Labour Department has successfully helped about 40,000 people to find jobs. So the number is very encouraging because over the same period last year, the figure was only 30,000. So you can see that the situation is improving. But of course we need to work very hard. We need to continue to encourage people to invest in Hong Kong and then to create new jobs.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion)

Ends/Wednesday, July 14, 2004

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