Following is the transcript of the remarks by the Chief Executive, Mr Tung Chee Hwa to reporters after his meeting with President Bill Clinton at the White House today (Friday, September 12, US time):

Mr Tung: I had a warm and cordial, very useful meeting with the President just now. I was able to explain to the President how well the transition has gone and that 'one country, two systems' is now functioning really well.

We also had an opportunity for me to emphasise how important the US-Hong Kong relationship is. It is an important relationship and I emphasised we will do the utmost to make sure the relationship continues to be strong and viable. We discussed areas of intellectual property protection, strategic commodity trade curbs, the fight against narcotics and in areas where we all can work together.

I have emphasised our commitment to democracy and to the movement of political evolution as outlined in the Basic Law. We will move forward in that manner. We also discussed generally about Asia-America relationship and we talked about the importance of a good Sino-US relationship. The President emphasised how important the relationship is to the world, and I emphasised how important it is for Hong Kong. We also talked about the importance of the coming summit and expect the summit between President Jiang Zemin and President Clinton will be a successful one.

So it was a very useful discussion for me.

Question: (Francis Moriarty, RTHK): Any specific proposals for either you or the President on how relations could be improved?

Mr Tung: We had a very useful discussion as to how important the development of these relationships are and I think we look forward, we all be working very hard to make sure this will happen.

Question: (Unknown reporter): How did you explain to the President your commitment to democracy, given your recent change in the election law and how you do not now have people of Hong Kong deciding their legislature?

Mr Tung: You know, we are very committed to democracy. It is very important for Hong Kong to move in that direction because it is in the long-term interests of Hong Kong. The importance of democracy is free speech, freedom of the press, the importance of democracy is the ability to have political parties, to organise them, to debate openly. The importance of democracy is also about the rule of law. We already have the fundamentals there to push forward on democracy in Hong Kong. It's only a question as to the speed which we are moving forward. You might think it's slow, but there your are, we are moving forward with democracy.

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:The Chief Executive, Mr Tung Chee Hwa meets US President Bill Clinton