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Following is the transcript of remarks (English portion) of the media session by the Financial Secretary, Mr Henry Tang, after attending the meeting of the Commission on Poverty (CoP) at the ground floor lobby of Central Government Offices (West Wing) this afternoon (May 3):
Question: Mr Tang, could you please tell us how the meeting went and what will happen to the Commission next?
Financial Secretary: We tabled a draft executive summary of the CoP report. I expect the members will take some time to study the details of this report and prepare for next meeting at which we will finalise the CoP report. This report will not only just review what we have done but we also have made recommendations on the way forward for the next administration to address and to alleviate poverty.
Question: Is the Government to take over what the Commission is doing?
Financial Secretary: That will be up to the future administration to decide and of course as you can see from the Chief Executive's announcement today, the setting up of a Labour and Welfare Bureau is actually very much within our recommendations and that would be the best way to address the issue of poverty holistically.
Question: Is the report suggesting or hinting that the Commission...?
Financial Secretary: The work of addressing the issue of poverty will continue because the SAR Government places a lot of emphasis on how to address this very important issue. It's just that because the Government will change, going to a new term, so the new term administration may wish to review the institutional setup. We will probably make some recommendations when we finalise the report but because this is a draft report so we have not made any substantive recommendations yet.
Question: (inaudible)
Financial Secretary: Not necessarily, because like the Chief Executive answered a question today, if there are programmes that are ready to be implemented then I think the respective bureau or department will carry out that policy. It is only when there are issues that require further study or further discussion then it will require the input of an inclusive kind of committee like CoP.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Thursday, May 3, 2007
Issued at HKT 20:40
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