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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Chief Executive-elect (CE-elect), Mr C Y Leung, at the lobby of West Wing, Central Government Offices, this afternoon (June 27):
CE-elect: I shall repeat it quickly in English. Fulfilling one of my pledges in the election manifesto, I announce today the appointment of Mrs Laura Cha as the chairperson of the working group to establish the Financial Services Development Council which was in my election manifesto. The Council is a platform for collaboration of the public and private sectors to push forward Hong Kong's position as an international financial centre of the country and to promote the further development of our financial services and also to promote Hong Kong's financial services overseas. I would like to ask Mrs Cha to say something on the work of the working group.
CE-elect: Instead of Government deciding what this Financial Services Development Council should do and what its membership should comprise, the purpose of having a working group is actually to listen to the private sector. And I am sure they have valuable views to contribute to the process.
Reporter: (on the Report of the Select Committee to Study Mr Leung Chun-ying's Involvement as a Member of the Jury in the West Kowloon Reclamation Concept Plan Competition and Related Issues)
CE-elect: That was my response to the report of the Select Committee on West Kowloon. Basically, I said the finding of the Select Committee proved that there was no interest involvement between myself and the participants of this design competition. The report actually cleared my reputation on this.
Reporter: …the space below the car park at home…
CE-elect: This is one of the items. It is an important item. It has caught media attention and also public attention. The point is to ask an engineer, a construction engineer, a surveyor and an architect to look at the space below the car park. This space, by the way, is not a basement. As described in this statement, it is actually a space on the same level as the garden and can be entered from the garden. And the space is below the single car parking space. There was speculation that I actually created the space underneath the car park after I bought the property in 1999, seven years after the development had been completed. This is not possible. It's basically what the four experts say in the statement. Their conclusion coincides with the view expressed by a civil engineering professor of Hong Kong University in a magazine which was published this morning. So I just want to clear this aspect because I told the public through the media that I did not create the space, but I bear responsibility for my oversight, overlooking the fact that, as it turned out, it's an illegal structure. It is impossible physically to create this space after the building had been completed. I am sorry we only provide the Chinese version of the statement. If you read the statement, I think it is logical and makes sense.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Issued at HKT 22:52
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