Transcript of remarks by CE and CS
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     Following is the transcript of remarks by the Chief Executive, Mr C Y Leung, at a media session on the progressive abolition of the "offsetting" arrangement under the Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) System today (June 23):
 
Reporter: Could you please just describe the current plan that you're rolling out and why is it that the Government feels there's a need to intervene like the Chief Secretary just said? And are you giving workers false hope here, because, as you mentioned, the new Government can overturn this if they wish to?
 
Chief Executive: The work to abolish the "offsetting" mechanism actually started a long time ago, and there was a working group led by the then Chief Secretary and joined by the then Secretary for Labour and Welfare, have been working on this and have been listening to the views of stakeholders, including employers and employees. And that led to a statement in my Policy Address in January this year, and after that we continued the work and finally the paper reached the Executive Council. And while the Executive Council paper was being prepared, one obvious observation was that both the employee side and employer side became more focused on this issue and they have come up with counter-proposals and proposed amendments and so on, so forth. And so it isn't something that we started a couple of weeks ago. It's something that the employee side has been asking for a long time. So the timing is this. And the incoming Government, as all incoming Governments do, have a prerogative to do whatever the incoming Government think is right regarding this abolition of "offsetting" mechanism proposal or, for that matter, any other proposal that we made.
 
Reporter: ... stick to what you have proposed now, because, as you said, you know, this concerns ...?
 
Chief Executive: It is not for me to advise. I'm sure the incoming Government will have its view. It may be the same as ours, may not be.
 
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
 

Ends/Friday, June 23, 2017
Issued at HKT 21:02

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