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Transcript of press conference on West Kowloon Cultural District project
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    Following is the transcript (English portion) of the question-and-answer session at a press conference on the recommendation report of the Consultative Committee on the Core Arts and Cultural Facilities of the West Kowloon Cultural District today (September 12):

Reporter:  Mr Tang, some lawmakers said it's not enough to allocate only 40% of the buildings to arts facilities. Could you explain how you have reached this percentage and what's your response to that comment?

Chief Secretary for Administration Mr Henry Tang:  I think we've made very elaborate explanation as to how we have arrived at this percentage. First of all, the Consultative Committee and the three sub-committees have made extensive discussion and consultation with the arts and cultural community in Hong Kong and this is generally supported by the arts and cultural community. Indeed, we have a number of leading members of the arts and cultural community here today, sitting in the first two rows. We will welcome you to ask them questions afterwards. As far as government policy is concerned, our policy is that in any major metropolitan city, arts and culture is one of the fundamental cornerstones. So it is our policy that we want to develop this on a supply-led basis and not on a demand-led basis. This is our vision in developing West Kowloon Cultural District. On top of that, if you have visited many of the arts and cultural facilities overseas you will see that they are not isolated from the rest of the world. They are normally integrated into the city very well, in the sense that they are near commercial districts, near residential districts, or a mixture of commercial, residential as well as shopping and entertainment facilities. This is what we set out to create - an integrated community with arts and culture as its core function, but supported by dining, retail and other leisure activities, so this kind of place will not be dead if there is no cultural event. So this is how you can make a place more vibrant, more cosmopolitan as well as for people who live around that area that they will have a place to go even when they are not attending a particular cultural affair.

Reporter: How do you respond to that 40% is not enough?

Chief Secretary for Administration: I think the plan speaks for itself. If you just look at, for example that picture, you will see the whole planning intention is to turn it into an arts and cultural-led facility.

Convenor of Performing Arts and Tourism Advisory Group Mrs Selina Chow: Perhaps I can supplement. If you compare the two lists, the one that was originally in the IFP before and now, in fact, after the consultation with the arts and cultural community, we have increased quite substantially, the facilities at least for performing arts definitely. Also in terms of fine-tuning all the facilities we have actually taken into consideration the aspirations of the arts and cultural community. If you look at it, for example, it didn't have a concert hall before. Now it has a concert hall, a chamber music hall. It didn't have a Xiqu Centre before, now it has that. So, all these have been proposed by the arts and cultural community. It's not something that was dreamt up either by the Government or any one of us in the committee. It's all in response to extensive consultation with the people who are going to use these facilities ultimately and therefore we are very confident that with their input it is more likely that we will make a big success of the facilities rather than just to sort of build some hardware and put it to the arts community.

Convenor of Museums Advisory Group Mr Victor Lo: I don't think we should be too indulged on the percentage because it's a big piece of land. Speaking on behalf of the museum committee, we also had extensive discussion. Yes, the size, long-term, would have been more ideal if it wasn't reduced by 30%. But still, after being reduced by 30% it's still a fairly sizeable museum. As we said in the paper, it's roughly the size of MoMA in New York and Tate Modern in London. If any one of you has been to those museums, they are very large. Lastly, a museum is not a hardware-driven activity, it's a content-driven activity. For us to say we want a world-class museum, it's only a wish at this stage. A world-class museum requires 10, 20, 30 years if not longer and tonnes of energy to be pumped into it. First and foremost we need to recruit world-class people to lead the development, then we need to develop world-class content so I don't think size is the deciding factor at this stage. Not even for the next 10, 15, not even 20 years in my opinion.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the opening remarks.)

Ends/Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Issued at HKT 22:09

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