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The world had become flatter, and structural reform had become part of Hong Kong's continuous effort to enhance its competitiveness on the globalised platform, the Financial Secretary, Mr John C Tsang, said today (August 4) at the APEC Ministerial Meeting on Structural Reform.
Speaking at the first session "Political challenges of structural reform", Mr Tsang quoted the lifting of wine duty in his last Budget as an example of such an effort. "What was seen as the 'sin' tax in the past is used to promote Hong Kong's role as a wine trading and distribution hub, and the underlying objective is to create jobs. The prospect so far appears to be encouraging," he said.
He pointed out some new reform challenges for the APEC region in relation to the serious impact of high food and oil prices.
"The nature of this challenge is complex and many economies are facing, understandably, circumstances unique to themselves. But there are also generic reform issues that could be addressed by the region as a whole.
"For example, price reforms that would gradually align domestic prices to reflect the scarcity value of the food and fuel items concerned should be encouraged. Second, fuel taxes and subsidies should be reviewed. Such reforms would provide the right market signals to encourage the proper supply and demand responses that are necessary to address the long-term challenges we all face," he said.
At the meeting's second session "Dialogue with business on structural reform", Mr Tsang pointed out that one of Hong Kong's key initiatives to improve regulatory efficiency was the wider use of IT and e-government. Another important step was the use of regulatory reviews that examined why regulations were necessary and how they should be applied.
The efforts of Hong Kong's Business Facilitation Advisory Committee (BFAC) in improving the business environment in Hong Kong were discussed extensively at the meeting as a model for Government-business partnership in business facilitation in the region.
During the session, Chairman of Hong Kong's BFAC Mr Anthony Nightingale, shared with delegates the successes and experience of business facilitation work in Hong Kong.
"After many years of business facilitation work, we have also come to the stage that apart from tackling sector-specific or licence-specific problems, we need to consider how to further cultivate within the civil service a customer service and business facilitation culture.
"Political will is a pre-requisite. Building on the successes we had over the past decade, our Chief Executive early last year launched a 'Be the Smart Regulator' programme as a new initiative of the Government's regulatory reform to enhance our business-friendliness and long-term competitiveness," he said.
Mr Tsang will attend the meeting's other sessions tomorrow morning (August 5) and a joint ministerial media conference afterwards.
Ends/Monday, August 4, 2008
Issued at HKT 15:52
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