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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for the Environment, Mr Wong Kam-sing, on the electricity market and tariffs after attending a seminar this afternoon (August 31):
Reporter: Does the Government have any bargaining power at all? Will you propose any tariff structure to the power companies to have negotiations?
Secretary for the Environment: I think the society is aware of the bargaining power under the current structure, and to some extent that we have to respect the contract and agreement. But there is room for the Government to negotiate with the power companies, particularly for the tariff structure so that we can have room to improve the system, particularly to look after those who are using less energy and those who are the underprivileged.
Reporter: You have mentioned in your address that you have three goals for energy consumption. Can you talk a bit about those?
Secretary for the Environment: In the opening remarks at the seminar, I mentioned three aspects. Firstly, it is to promote people to conserve energy, to make Hong Kong a low-carbon society. Secondly, we have to have a process that engages the public so that we can talk about energy conservation and also the future agreement with the power companies. Last but not the least, we need to have the process that can help people understand the system so that we can improve the regulations in the long term.
Reporter: Mr Wong, you have mentioned the system of the tariff structure that will look after those who are using less energy and those who are underprivileged. Do you mean you will call on the power companies to offer discounts to the poor families?
Secretary for the Environment: Not really this time. But even under the current structure, there is a kind of stepping arrangement (sliding scale). For those people who are using less energy, their unit price is much lower than those who are using more energy and would have to pay a higher unit rate. So what I am talking about is this curve (sliding scale), whether it can be steeper, so that it could encourage people to conserve more energy.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Friday, August 31, 2012
Issued at HKT 18:46
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