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Following is the speech by the Chief Executive, Mr C Y Leung, at the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) Formula E Championship - Hong Kong ePrix press conference today (October 9):
Mr Agag, Mr Yu, Mr Piquet Junior, ladies and gentlemen, government colleagues,
Having listened to Mr Agag's address, I thought I should speak from my heart as well, after which I shall read part of the prepared text as written by my speechwriter, otherwise he'll be awfully disappointed.
This is the realisation of a dream that the Hong Kong Government co-owns. Mr Yu, I remember vividly, approached me through, none other than the Central Policy Unit, the CPU of Hong Kong Government, about the possibility of organising an ePrix in Hong Kong. Now as you well know, the Hong Kong Government is a rule-based government, namely even the Chief Executive cannot just press a button and say "let it happen". We have to meet all the rules and requirements in Hong Kong, make sure that the Government itself doesn't break any of these rules and policies or even laws. And therefore it's taken us some time to realise this dream and realise it properly, and here we are today, and we're very proud to share the realisation of this common dream.
As Mr Agag said, we provide a perfect setting for this event which we all look forward to. I often describe Hong Kong as a harbour city that has double sides. There are many harbour cities in the world, but I have yet to find another harbour city that is like Hong Kong. In a sense that we are very similar to a type of Chinese embroidery that is called Suzhou embroidery, where you can actually admire the embroidery, admire the work from both sides. We have a harbour in the middle of the city, so you can appreciate the harbour and the city backdrop behind it from the Hong Kong Island side and you can do it likewise from the Kowloon side.
The reason why we want to realise this dream in Hong Kong is partly because it's an exciting event that we like to host, and we like to invite our friends to Hong Kong to share with us this very exciting event. You might call that tourism, but Hong Kong's an open society, we're a welcoming society, and we like friends from all around the world to share this excitement with us. Secondly, Hong Kong's a great showcase for anything that's exciting, anything that's attractive, because we are an international city and additionally we are a Chinese city, and obviously we like to invite our friends from across the boundary to share the excitement with us. More importantly, the Hong Kong Government is promoting e-transport, we've been promoting the use of e-vehicles, and this has been a very good attraction.
Now this is where I'm going to read from my prepared text. We offer tax incentives, and work together with the private sector to set up a charging network to support the operation of electric vehicles. We've also set up a $300 million Pilot Green Transport Fund. The mission of the fund is to subsidise transport operators to try out green forms of transport and also innovative transport technology. What would be better promotion of e-transport than to hold this exciting event in Hong Kong, and that's why we are here today. I thank Mr Yu for taking this initiative to the Hong Kong Government and I thank all my colleagues in various departments, there are many government departments involved who have worked tirelessly to, again using Mr Agag's word, to realise the dream that we witness today. So, all the best to the organisers and I very much look forward to joining the event personally on the day. Thank you.
Ends/Friday, October 9, 2015
Issued at HKT 19:05
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MP4 format