**********************************************
Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, Professor K C Chan, at a media session after attending the Finance Committee meeting at the Legislative Council today (January 23):
Reporter: (About the legitimacy of moving agenda items.)
Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury: The reason that we did not shuffle the agenda was because many items have their own immediacy. They must be approved and they appealed to different constituencies obviously. We are now coming down to the end of the fiscal year. We have to really examine what flexibility that we have in order to pass the remaining items. Taking those four items out is perfectly legitimate. They do not involve new policy and in fact, putting them on the Estimates does not present any difficulties in implementing these programmes or procuring equipment. What we are doing is perfectly legitimate and we have to gain time to handle the remaining items including the Fisheries Development Loan Fund, as well as the IT Bureau (Innovation and Technology Bureau).
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Friday, January 23, 2015
Issued at HKT 19:51
NNNN
