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Following is the transcript (English portion) of the media session by the Financial Secretary, Mr John C Tsang, in Singapore today (November 11):
Reporter: Any consideration for deciding whether to withdraw the deposit protection scheme early?
Financial Secretary: We have already decided. Our goal is to withdraw from the 100% deposit protection at the end of 2010, but meanwhile we are doing consultation in seeking an enhancement of the current protection scheme from $100,000 to $500,000. We are consulting the public and the industry. Once we have achieved a consensus on this, we will have to move to legislate and once the legislation is approved, we will be able to implement it.
Reporter: Why is it … discuss with other regional economies in determining when to withdraw it?
Financial Secretary: To have a coordinated withdrawal, it's much better than doing it all individually, because each one doing so would create ripples in the region, but if we were to do it together, we could enhance the certainty, the stability factor in the region. It's much better. So that's why we have to work with Singapore and Malaysia together, which are the two largest entities in the region to work together. If other regions were to join us, we would welcome them so that we would be able to achieve a higher stability factor.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Issued at HKT 21:56
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