The Chief Executive, Mr Tung Chee Hwa, met the President of the World Bank Group, Mr James Wolfensohn, today as Hong Kong gears up for the World Bank/International Monetary Fund Annual Meetings.

He also met the Australian Treasurer, Mr Peter Costello, and the German Federal Minister of Finance, Dr Theodor Waigel, later in the afternoon.

Mr Tung said that the choice of Hong Kong as the venue for the World Bank/International Monetary Fund Annual Meetings had reflected international confidence in the territory and underlined Hong Kong's role as an international financial centre.

"Hong Kong's success story is not one about luck but about Hong Kong people's tenacity to advance. To meet the challenges ahead, we are vigorously upgrading our human resources and our physical and economic structure.

"We are determined to maintain Hong Kong as a premier international financial centre with a top-class workforce and state-of-the-art technology to meet the challenges of the next millennium," the Chief Executive said.