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Following is the transcript of a question-and-answer session by the Chief Executive, Mr Donald Tsang, at the Hong Kong Business Community Luncheon at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre today (November 2):
Question: Thank you very much for sharing with us your views on the Policy Address. On behalf of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries, we are most happy with your proposal to allocate $200 million to launch the R & D cash rebate scheme, and we all believe this is in the right direction. However, we feel that this year's Policy Address has not touched on support measures for SMEs in the manufacturing industry. We consider that the Government should do a little bit more in this area. Chief Executive, would you please comment on this.
Chief Executive: I really love the businessmen. They always give you the good news first; they usually start with 'however', 'but'. It's still better than some of my political friends who start with an attack in the first sentence, the first word for that matter. You understand that SMEs are the backbone of Hong Kong's economy. We cannot do without them. The Chief Executive, myself, and my administration do our very best to ensure that our SMEs will thrive and we should help them to overcome whatever difficulties come their way. The way we operate, as you know, over the last 20 months or so, over this financial crisis, has demonstrated our sincerity and our thoroughness in helping the SMEs. Remember, first of all, we have a whole range of funding schemes to help SMEs to obtain finance, increase their competitiveness, help them to upgrade their own methodology in the Mainland, in particular the Pearl River Delta. On top of that, as you know, we have this special loan scheme (introduced) in December last year to assist local enterprises to tide over the difficult period. Our commitment of $100 billion underwrites the loans of banks. In fact, it provided 80% of the loan guarantees for all successful applicants. I just asked before I came here, anticipating the curiosity about SMEs, the particular loan schemes. This loan scheme so far has approved over 22,000 applications over the last year. That was quite a remarkable figure. As you know, the Financial Secretary announced only a few days ago that he will further the life of this scheme for another six months.
On the IT front, you know about the cash rebate scheme. That was a very good scheme. I hope you made good use of it. This particularly targets all the SMEs. And of course, we are promoting all our work overseas, not only on the large enterprises, but also particularly on SMEs in Hong Kong. I will continue this effort, not only overseas, but particularly in the Mainland in the coming year.
So, we are doing all we can and I will assure you that we will help you while the country as a whole, in the Mainland, is concentrating on promoting domestic consumption, that our SMEs are going to have a share of that action and we are going to help them as far as we can. SMEs are our mainstay and we are going to help and do whatever we can over a whole wide range of things. If there are any good ideas of yours, something which we can do, we will continue to consider. But we must do it fairly, equitably, to everyone in Hong Kong, in every small, medium size enterprises in Hong Kong, irrespective of nationality, irrespective of origin. We are a cosmopolitan community and we must be able to help all SMEs in this regard.
Question: Thank you very much, Mr Tsang, for a very detailed explanation of the Policy Address. I am pleased to be living in Hong Kong and I think we are very fortunate to be living here and I think it's one of the best cities in the world today. That's probably partly thanks to you and your hardworking team. In your 2009-10 Policy Address, you stressed that we should enhance the quality and competitiveness of our market to attract international talent, capital, financial institutions and products. Hong Kong has great potential to be the wealth management centre, not only of the mainland, but also of the region which differentiates us from other cities in Asia. Is there anything the Administration will do to strengthen the role of Hong Kong as the wealth management centre of the region?
Chief Executive: Hong Kong specialises in services, particularly high-end services, and corporate management, enterprises management, certainly, is a very important skill and an area of excellence in Hong Kong for a long time. As a government, we are not as specific as such about management services, but what we are doing are conducive to a growth of industry in that sector. First of all, we have a very cosmopolitan set-up. We welcome foreigners. We have a very liberal immigration policy. We want to attract the best management consultants, the best management people to come to Hong Kong, not only to work but to settle here and live here, providing a whole range of international schools, supermarkets catering for all kinds of diets and at the same time a very cosmopolitan, very friendly atmosphere in Hong Kong. We maintain a highly low tax structure to ensure that they are able to stay here. We have the best universities in the nation as a whole. The best three universities in the whole Chinese nation happen to be in Hong Kong and they are some of the best universities in the world for that matter. They produce as a result of academic skills, good people to join the management cadre here, to integrate with the foreign experts, to produce a very unique blend of people to cater for the needs of the Asian region. All these are important assets and what's more, we are working on improvement of our air quality, preservation of Hong Kong as a vibrant city, particularly with a strong heritage, and improving our standards of sports and culture and so on. All these are geared to produce a community with a strong underpinning of all the ingredients that make up a good cosmopolitan city. I believe these are the ingredients that will make Hong Kong very strong as a provider of management services. If there are areas in which we have been missing, I will humbly be listening to your views.
Question: I am glad to say I have a statement of support for your Policy statement at the beginning, but I have no sting in my question at the end. We welcome your identification of the testing and certification industry as one of the six advantage industries of the Hong Kong economy and that the Government will be supportive of measures to boost this industry. We have always considered that testing and certification are not only crucial supporting services for manufacturing and exporting businesses, a host of other businesses as well, like medical, but it's also an independent industry with legs on its own right. I am sure the private sector will work supportively with the Government as you roll out measures to boost this industry to a new level. I would like to hear more about what these measures may be and what resources the Government will be prepared to devote to support this industry in the future.
Chief Executive: This has been an area of remarkable progress and achievement over the last few years. I have been told very soundly by experts that this is an area of excellence that Hong Kong must not ignore. As you know, we established in September, two months ago, formally, in pursuit of my idea, the establishment of the Hong Kong Council for Testing and Certification. That was a major formal step we took. The council will be working out a three-year business plan to make sure that it can take forward the certification and testing capability of Hong Kong to a new plateau. The Government will be waiting with bated breath to complement what it plans to do and will do whatever it can to complement their pursuits. Meanwhile, there is a lot of government testing and certification work we wish to farm out to the private sector in this regard, including work by the government chemist, work by the telecommunications authorities, equipment testing work by various government specialist departments. In other words, we are deliberately trying to encourage the growth of this industry using the government requirements. In other words we are able to cope in any case in some medical testing work and foodstuff testing work. All this can be farmed out to make sure we have a good head start in this regard. We will be working very hard to secure recognition also in the Mainland of the testing standards Hong Kong is going to provide and the testing certification that we are going to publish in Hong Kong. We will be working with the Productivity Council, the Trade Development Council and our economic offices to ensure that all these work will be propagated, not only in Hong Kong, but elsewhere as well. I agree that this is an area which has great strength and great potential. That is, derived from one fact, Hong Kong itself is a good brand name. We must leverage on it and on things that we are able to do better, providing a range of services that Hong Kong, because of its integrity of services, because of the honesty of businessmen, we are going to provide new economic opportunities for the people here and for the businessmen here.
Question: I am one of your old friends. I am the oldest working Dutchman in Hong Kong. I am one of the few thousand people here who apparently are very sympathetic to you. I have not heard a word of criticism here today. This must be very pleasing to you because you know and I know that outside this hall there are many more thousand people who are attacking you, mainly about very trivial matters. A few months ago you came to the chamber and I asked you the same question. I said to you, "Mr Tsang, with all this criticism and there's a lot more today, are you being bothered or do you have sleepless nights". May I ask the same question of you today.
Chief Executive: This question was not prompted. All I can say is, Hong Kong is a diverse, huge, open economy, an open society where freedom of speech is cherished, freedom of press is cherished. I would not trade them in for anything else on earth. This represents Hong Kong. Someone in my position I am afraid I have to take on certain heat, certain criticism from certain sectors of the community who either disagree with my programmes or disagree with my work, or not satisfied with my work, and I accept all this. To answer your question, it all depends on the level of complaint and the veracity and sincerity of those complaints. All I can tell you is occasionally I am bothered. But I sleep very well.
Ends/Monday, November 2, 2009
Issued at HKT 20:10
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