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Following is the English transcript of a media session given by the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mrs Anson Chan, after visiting the Marine Department's offices at Macau Ferry Terminal this (Thursday) afternoon.

Reporter: Hong Kong's reputation as a free market economy has been tarnished by the constant intervention by the Government. How long more is the Government going to intervene into the market?

Mrs Chan: We believe the Financial Secretary has already explained the counter measures that we were taking in the market against those who are speculating and this double play both on our currency and on the stock and futures index. We were taking action purely to deal with these speculative activities in terms of ensuring that the pain that we are going through is not unnecessarily aggravated by speculative activities. That is not to say that we are not prepared to take the pain as a result of the current financial turmoil. We also know that the difficulties that we are currently facing are due to a large measure on what's happening in the region and clearly when stability returns to the economies in the region, then the better we will be able to adjust. It is a painful period. We do not wish to see this pain unnecessarily exacerbated by speculative activities on our currency and attempts to hot up the interest rate.

Transcript of Chief Secretary for Administration's meet-the-media session (Chinese)

End/Thursday, August 27, 1998

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