Following is the speech by the Financial Secretary, Mr John C Tsang, at the Asian Ministers' Forum on Cultural Cooperation this morning (July 23):

Your Excellencies, Honourable Delegates, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen:

     Good Morning.

     It is my duty of delight first of all to welcome you all to this forum, and to our city. Many of you have crossed oceans and continents, may even have climbed mountains and traversed valleys, to get here. We have a saying, "No greater joy is there than when friends come calling from afar". Indeed, we are truly overjoyed that you are here.

     Hong Kong will play host to you for the next three days. I hope you will find the programme rewarding and our hospitality warm and pleasing. I also hope that you will be able to stay longer, an extra day perhaps, so that you will get to know our city even better.

     My second duty is to explain my presence here.  You may be wondering why a secretary of finance has gate-crashed a forum dedicated to culture.  It is actually not as odd as it seems.  It has to do with the nexus between culture and development, the latter of which falls squarely under my portfolio.  Moreover, culture and development are two issues that are high on the Government's agenda, and our Chief Executive has included them prominently in his election manifesto for implementation in his new term that began on July 1.

     For Hong Kong, this conference also has a special meaning. This forum was born in the darkest days after SARS, when practically all international cultural contact with the outside world came to a halt. This forum was our way of reaching out to our friends and neighbours across the region. Today, it has grown into a proud, premier event on our international calendar, where important decision-makers and creative thinkers in Asia and rest of the world come together.  On behalf of our city, I thank you for having responded so emphatically to our calls for friendship to join us in saluting the triumph of the human spirit.

     This forum, therefore, embodies the resilient Hong Kong spirit.  We have left behind the dark days of multiple years of negative growth and fiscal deficits.  We have halved the unemployment rate from its dizzying height. We even climbed from our lowest ebb to this sweet moment with the Hang Seng Index reaching 23,291 end of last week. I cannot claim any credit for this meteoric rise, because I have only 23 days behind me on the job. But the people of Hong Kong can. It is the legendary Hong Kong bounce, the legendary Hong Kong spirit.

     This year, we have another important emotional and historic milestone to celebrate: the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to our Motherland.

     To help commemorate this happy and historic occasion, we have invited the largest contingent of representatives from our sister cities, regions and provinces from the Mainland-some 33 administrative units in all, from Hunan to Hubei, from Henan to Hebei, from Guizhou to Guangzhou, from Shanxi to Jiangxi, from Chongqing to Anhui, and from Shanghai to Shenzhen. These names may be quite a mouthful for some of you, and I promise that I won't test you on them later, but they represent some of our key neighbouring locations. So, if our friends from around the world should wish to cultivate cultural contacts on the Mainland in one go, this is the place to do it.

     Ladies and Gentlemen, we are so pleased and proud that we are joined here by a galaxy of experts from different fields, from the four corners and five continents of the world. Where else would you see a conference that attracts geotechnical engineers, architects, sociologists, chartered surveyors, dramatists, literary lions, professors of psychiatry, artistic designers, educators, culture advocates, curators and concerned citizens, all in one place?

     I warmly welcome you all, regardless of your nationality, regardless of your political cause, regardless of your profession. Learning begins with listening, and Hong Kong is here to listen and learn, from everybody from everywhere. And we do have a great deal to learn from you, and we aim to soak up your experiences as much as we can.

     A hard-charging city like Hong Kong needs the soft cushion of culture more than anything else. A city that works hard needs the catharsis and emotional lubrication that comes from art and culture. In recent months, Hong Kong has engaged in a passionate debate about the value of our "collective memory". This debate is a healthy exercise. Maslow would probably say that Hong Kong is going through its "hierarchy of needs"-that with a full stomach, you don't want an empty head; that with a comfortable roof over your head, you don't want a sterile heart.  Besides, we do care about culture.

     A strong indication of our seriousness towards culture and development issues is the recent establishment of a Development Bureau headed by a super lady with a wealth of experience in community service and communication. Development matters with a culturally sensitive angle will be handled sensibly.

     Hong Kong is a crowded city that faces daunting challenges in balancing the need for development, which is essential for driving economic growth, and culture and conservation, which are important for anchoring our roots in the community and our heritage. As our Chief Executive says, allowing either side to go overboard would choke off progress. This is a community that keeps reinventing itself. Modernity must be tempered with a respect for heritage and history, something that we cannot quantify with a simple price tag.

     Each city or country faces its own unique challenges in development. And each must come up with its own uniquely creative solutions to the problems of cultural preservation. Here in Hong Kong, we have developed certain solutions, such as the physical relocation of historical buildings, as in the case of Murray House which was relocated and reconstructed, brick by brick, beam by beam, to a new locality.  Another example is the adaptive re-use of the historical residence of Kom Tong Hall, turning it into a museum commemorating Dr Sun Yat-sen.  

     Hong Kong does not have all the answers. We are here to learn and listen. Through forums such as this one, perhaps we can come up with new approaches to old problems. We are late-comers to the art of conservation, but we are ready to learn from old hands with proven ideas.  Help us realise our dream.

     Thank you and have a great stay in Hong Kong.

Ends/Monday, July 23, 2007
Issued at HKT 12:49

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