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The following is issued on behalf of the Housing Authority:

Following is the English portion of a transcript of the meet-the-media session by the Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands, Mr Michael Suen, on the listing of The Link REIT last night (December 19):

Reporter: What sort of arrangements will be made to minimize the possible legal challenges? What sort of arrangements will be made to restore people's confidence in the listing of public assets such as The Link REIT?

Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands: We do understand that we have prepared very carefully for this particular exercise. We have taken care to make sure that we got the legal basis to do so, but the judicial review actions taken by the applicant is rather unprecedented. We noticed that the judicial review has been rejected by two courts. It is now with the Court of Final Appeal and we have to wait until all the legal impediments are removed before we can launch to the next phase, and so because of that I can't say really when we would be able to re-launch the exercise. As I just said, we aim to re-launch it as soon as possible.

Reporter: Do you think there needs to be some arrangements to restore investors' confidence as well as to prepare for any possible further legal challenges? I mean, you can't just take a wait-and-see attitude.

Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands: I don't think it's a wait-and-see attitude. Of course, we would have to make sure that we get over with the present difficulties we find ourselves in at the moment. After we've got rid of all the problems, then we would be in a better position to consider the re-launch.

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

Ends/Monday, December 20, 2004

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