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    Following is the transcript of a media session given by the Secretary for the Civil Service, Mr Joseph W P Wong, today (June 16) on Hong Kong's clean and efficient civil service after officiating at the Leadership Forum 2005:

Reporter: Is there a trend for civil service involvement in corruption in Hong Kong?

Secretary: I want to say that we have in fact one of the most honest and clean civil services in the world. This is the third Leadership Forum on Ethical Governance. You can all see from the figures on corruption complaints, prosecutions and convictions that we maintain a very high level of integrity. And in fact we continue to make improvement and all the figures which I listed a moment ago continue to decline. I would hope the press and the public would continue to take a very keen interest in the integrity management of the civil service because in my view, and certainly in the view of the public, a clean and efficient civil service is the cornerstone of effective governance in Hong Kong.

Reporter: ......

Secretary: In his election platform, Mr [Donald] Tsang has pledged that he attached tremendous importance to maintaining a clean, efficient and politically neutral civil service. And we all know that Mr Tsang came from the civil service. Therefore I have absolute confidence that if and when he becomes Chief Executive, he will spare no effort to work with the civil service and ensure that we will continue to maintain a very high level of integrity.

(Please also refer to the Chinese transcript.)

Ends/Thursday, June 16, 2005

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