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The following is a transcript of remarks by the Secretary for the Environment, Mr Wong Kam-sing, on Lung Mei beach and waste management today (October 25):
Reporter: I understand that the government is going to do a Ting Kok Plus Conservation Plan, but at the same time you are damaging the environment in the Lung Mei beach. Isn¡¦t that contradicting?
Secretary for the Environment: I think we would like to have a kind of win-win situation. While some projects are subject to certain historic reasons and they have to move on, we would like to through the Ting Kok Plus project on one hand to amplify the area so that even the longer Ting Kok coastal areas can be conserved in a better way, and also through a kind of collaboration with green groups and concerned stakeholders that we can have a better conservation education and a kind of long term, better conservation for the whole of Hong Kong.
Reporter: The green groups said Lung Mei beach has a huge bio-diversity there, what is the government¡¦s assessment?
Secretary for the Environment: I think we have to respect the procedures including the EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) process that involved the experts in town to review the technical aspects. I met some of the green groups during lunch time today, and they have raised concern about all these aspects. I think we would like to continue the dialogue with them, so we will set up a kind of expert-to-expert dialogue very soon. All these concerns can be better addressed face-to-face.
Reporter: Secretary Wong, a couple of questions. First, has the government any plans to address to the landlord tenant split where landlords invest in energy efficiency but most of the benefits go to the tenants. Can we overcome that problem?
Secretary for the Environment: I think it is a kind of longstanding issue about how to share the benefits through energy conservation. I think we will review the issue probably through the stakeholder meeting. By the end of this month, we will have the focus group meeting on energy conservation and probably we would have a good chance to talk about that by that time.
Reporter: One other question. (On Building Energy Code) Is there any idea for tightening it a bit up, making it more like that is doing in Singapore?
Secretary for the Environment: I think we can always learn from other cities or countries like Singapore. Regarding your question on the Building Energy Efficiency Ordinance, I think it is a kind of milestone, at least a benchmark for Hong Kong. In parallel, we are raising the bar, as you know we are increasing the standard for some of the codes so that we can always match the standard with other advanced countries. So it is a kind of evolving mechanism that we can always improve based on these current benchmarks.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Thursday, October 25, 2012
Issued at HKT 19:45
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