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Following is the transcript of the remarks by the Financial Secretary, Mr John C Tsang, and the Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Mr Stephen Lam, at a media session at the Central Government Offices New Annex today (March 31) on the establishment of the Hong Kong-Taiwan Economic and Cultural Co-operation and Promotion Council and the Hong Kong-Taiwan Business Co-operation Committee:
Reporter: The first question is senior officials from Hong Kong and Taiwan have been actually visiting each other in the past couple of years, and with this new platform, what more can be done between the two regions, i.e. what kind of concrete measures would there be in terms of exchange between Taiwan and Hong Kong. And the second question is for Mr Lam, this promotion council will be registered as a limited company very soon, could you explain the rationale behind this, and what kind of statutory status would it have?
Financial Secretary: This new platform will enable Hong Kong and Taiwan to deal with all the various issues that are of mutual concern. I can imagine that we could do a lot of things from the financial services angle, for example, from the avoidance of double taxation, even from aviation, civil aviation, or shipping, from all of these angles, and we would also involve the cultural sector, and so forth, so this would be an enabling platform that we could make good use of, to improve the relationship between Taiwan and Hong Kong, particularly on the commerce and cultural aspects.
Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs: I will supplement the Financial Secretary. The Hong Kong Government places a lot of importance on the establishment of this promotion council. We are taking the first step today. The Chief Executive is signing an order under Section 47A of Chapter 1 of the Laws of Hong Kong to establish by executive order this promotion council. The second step we will take in the next few months is to establish a limited company by guarantee. This is to facilitate the holding of conferences and seminars and to account properly, in financial terms, for the activities of the promotion council. The other function which this limited company legal personality will enable us to do is that the senior officials of the HKSAR Government will be able to act in the capacity of directors of this promotion council and thereby interact with our Taiwanese counterparts. They are also establishing a co-operation council of a similar status and this will enable us to deal with the agenda items which the Financial Secretary just presented to you, for example, aviation, financial services etc. And this definitely goes beyond the holding of bilateral visits.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Issued at HKT 19:22
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