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Transcript of the press conference by the Chief Executive, Mr Tung Chee Hwa, following the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting in Kuala Lumpur today (Wednesday):

Mr Tung: First of all I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Prime Minister of Malaysia, the people of Malaysia for a very well organised set of meetings and for the very warm friendship that has been extended to me and my colleagues. Secondly, I am very pleased that the leaders of the meeting reaffirmed our commitment to liberalisation of trade and investment as a very important objective for APEC. We also had an opportunity to discuss the issues concerning short-term problems that face us, particularly with regards to the financial crisis. And there, I think, there was a common, shared understanding that we must move forward in many of the economies that have been affected with a reform of the banking system, better banking supervision, of better corporate governance, of well thought-through, macro-economic policies and also on the front of how to supervise and get greater transparency and accountability of short-term movement of capital flows which have done some damage, so much damage in fact, to many of the economies in this region. There was a great deal of discussion about this and there was general agreement that there will be a forum, which will be similar to the G-22 forum, which last month in Washington had some very successful meetings, how we can build on that success, to move forward, to come out with something really concrete in terms of how would we survey, provide surveillance, that is get greater transparency of the international financial institutions, particularly some of the hedge funds.

We also had an opportunity to talk about greater co-operation in the areas of human resource technology, in areas of e-commerce. And please remember this meeting is being held very soon after the G-7 pronouncement of their determination to reduce interest rates, to stimulate their own domestic economies, all of which is very important to create the right environment for all the other economies of the world. And also at the same G-7 meeting there was a pronouncement that they would support the creation of a new international financial architecture. So I think we are now slowly moving in the right direction. And hopefully creating the right environment for some recovery in this part of the region.

Q: (Cliff Bale, RTHK): The Leaders Declaration seems to be short on detail. What do you think?

Mr Tung: Well, let me tell you this. We are not here to fix the immediate problems. We are here to work together to make sure that, for instance, what happened before, what has created problems for us, will not happen again. How do we do this? And secondly, yes, there are problems here which need fixing, how we can fix these problems. You know in matters of economy - problems are not created in a day. It's an accumulation of many, many factors and events over a period of time and the solution can not be found in a day either. It takes many very thoughtful and careful considerations to devise different plans to revitalise the economy, and that will take time too. So we have to recognise all of these things. The important thing is, we as leaders, have found a way forward. We are determined to move ahead in that direction.

Q: (Market News Hong Kong): In regards to the Japanese package, Hong Kong seems willing to work in the region in the issuing of bonds. How does Hong Kong see this?

A: (Norman Chan, Deputy Chief Executive, Hong Kong Monetary Authority): It was announced this week, that is a joint US-Japan initiative. I think we are still waiting for the details. We have seen some materials from the US and Japan but I think a meeting will soon be held in Tokyo, we understand, to discuss the details with economies interested in this scheme.

Q: (Market News) What about Hong Kong floating bonds in the debt market?

A: (Norman Chan): I think the details of this scheme are not available yet. There are different forms in terms of loans, in terms of guarantee schemes by the World Bank and the ADB. I think we really actually have to meet with the US and Japan, meet in Tokyo soon, to actually understand more about the details.

Mr Tung: I think our long-term objective is that we would like to become a centre for debt issuance in Hong Kong also. We harbour this ambition.

Q: (Cliff Bale, RTHK): What do you think Hong Kong's role should be in the financial crisis. Do you think Hong Kong should join this Task Force spoken about in the Leaders Declaration?

Mr Tung: Hong Kong really has a lot of very valuable experience we can share with others. I think that would be very useful. And secondly, Hong Kong, after all is a financial centre in Asia so we obviously would look forward to participating in that particular forum. We were, before in fact, part of the G-22, Andrew Sheng before and Norman Chan in the future, were actually participating in the G-22 meetings.

Q: (Barry Porter, SCMP): What issues did you discuss with President Jiang Zemin this week outside of APEC?

Mr Tung: Well, as you know, there is plenty of opportunity on the fringes of APEC just to chat with each other. Mostly about the Asian financial turmoil. We exchanged views about the expectations of the outcome of this meeting. We exchanged views about our experience of the Asian financial turmoil and how do we then move forward. So it was very helpful, very useful to me.

Q: Do you foresee political issues to continue in APEC?

Mr Tung: I think APEC is really a meeting of economic leaders as it is really a discussion about economic issues. So for instance, the whole meeting which lasted all day, the issues were economic. They were just economic. But the political issues, at least in the meeting itself, had not gotten in the way.

Q: (Mark Tung, ATV): Can you say that you are satisfied that politics did not get into this meeting?

Mr Tung: Well I would put it this way that there are a lot of very important economic issues that need to be addressed and I was very happy that we had many, many hours to discuss these very, very important pressing issues.

Q: Can you comment on Al Gore speaking, because there is a lot of discussion about that.

Mr Tung: Well let me say this, we had a very good meeting today. The atmosphere, as I said, from the very beginning was very friendly, was very constructive. There was a great deal of a sense of urgency but it was a very friendly meeting. And that applies to everybody who attended that meeting.

All right, thank you very much.

End/Wednesday, November 18, 1998

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Chief Executive's press conference transcript in Kuala Lumpur (Chinese part)