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The Government held a joint fund-raising event to help victims of the tsunami disaster in South Asia at the Hong Kong Stadium on January 1. The event was strongly supported by every sector of the community and about $33 million was raised.

The government will also continue to make use of Hongkong Post's payment service "PayThru Post" to collect donations from the public from Wednesday (January 5).

Director of Home Affairs, Mrs Pamela Tan, urged the public to make donations to help the victims who need emergency assistance, and to help them rebuild their lives.

From Wednesday, the "PayThru Post" counters at all Post Offices in Hong Kong (except two Mobile Post Offices) will offer donation collection services, as well as collecting payments on behalf of the Government and public utilities, during office hours.

Donations can be made by cash, EPS or cheque; if paying by cheque, please make it payable to "The Government of the HKSAR". The "PayThru Post" will issue a receipt immediately. No administration fee will be charged.

"Hongkong Post supports the relief effort in line with its slogan 'Linking people, delivering business'," said the Postmaster General, Mr Allan Chiang.

"We are not only urging our staff to make donations, but want to provide this service to help members of the public to make donations. We will do our best to see that the victims receive the donations from the Hong Kong community as soon as possible."

"'PayThruPost' started to collect donations from the community on behalf of five international relief organisations* from yesterday (January 2). This one-stop service makes it easier for the community to make donations to the Hong Kong residents affected by the disaster and the relief organisations," Mr Chiang said.

For enquiries, please contact Hongkong Post's 24-hour enquiry hotline 2921 2222.

*The five international relief organisations are Hong Kong Red Cross, World Vision Hong Kong, Oxfam Hong Kong, Hong Kong Committee for UNICEF and The Salvation Army.

Ends/Monday, January 3, 2005

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