Press Release

 

 

Transcript of Chief Secretary for Administration (Designate) & Financial Secretary (Designate)

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Following is the transcript (English portion) of the question-and-answer part of the media session by the Chief Secretary for Administration (Designate), Mr Donald Tsang, and Financial Secretary (Designate), Mr Antony Leung today (February 15):

Reporter: We've heard of people saying that Hong Kong now, because of the revenue from land and all that is going to go down, we are going to have to broaden our tax net. What sort of thinking or what sort of proposals do you have to broaden the tax net in Hong Kong?

Mr Leung: It may be a bit unfair to answer that question in detail now because I have not really assumed office. I will be assuming office on May 1st. But on the other hand, we all would like Hong Kong to be a leading economy in the world and to that extent we can also conclude - or shall I say, I think it is fairly clear that Hong Kong would have to progress on the role of knowledge economy, and there are quite a lot of initiatives that the Chief Executive and Mr Tsang have embarked on. And so, I think towards this general direction, we'll be working to further promote Hong Kong as, as I said, a leading economy. But I think in terms of the concrete policies, it will be a bit premature for me to comment on.

Reporter: But what is your thinking of new taxes in Hong Kong?

Mr Leung: It would be a bit premature for me to answer right now.

Reporter: How would you sum up your years as the Financial Secretary, and what advice would you give to your successor?

Mr Tsang: It's a bit of honey and tears all mixed up. Antony is a very experienced man and a very seasoned businessman, and he is very experienced in the Hong Kong Government operations generally - working on advisory committees in a number of capacities. He doesn't need my advice. My only advice, if he really wants one is, he has to keep his humour up, particularly a smiling face to our Legislative Councillors.

Reporter: Mr Leung, I am wondering what the attraction to you is, moving from the private sector into the civil service. Are you bored with banking or do you just need a change or what?

Mr Leung: As I said in my statement, to have the opportunity to serve the community, it really is something that I have been doing for quite some time, albeit on a part-time basis. I see this as an honour and a privilege and that is why I take up this challenge.

Reporter: The circumstances of Mrs Chan's departure engendered an impression, I think, particularly abroad, that maybe "two systems" was losing out to "one country" given her long reputation for standing up for ... the rule of law and civil liberties. Do you think, in your new job, that you will maybe hit the road at some point and go overseas and persuade people that "two systems" is alive and well?

Mr Tsang: Well, I think how the system is working is for all to see. Hong Kong is a very open society, everyone can come in and most of the news media are represented - like your celebrated newspaper here. For that reason I think we are very, very well covered. But I do understand the importance of not only talking to people, showing to people how well we are running things here, particularly how we are implementing "one country, two systems" and "Hong Kong people running Hong Kong", it is necessary for the Chief Executive, for the Chief Secretary and the Financial Secretary, and most of my senior colleagues for that matter, to go overseas and meet our counterparts and give them an opportunity to ask us more searching questions about how we do things here. So I do see the need, later in the year when I have delivered my Budget Speech and are able to think about the priorities of my new office, to work out to what extent I may need to travel overseas.

Reporter: In the past you've had your differences with Beijing, so do you think that you have got the trust of Beijing now? And one more question --

Mr Tsang: One question is enough for me, I have no memory for two questions for the time being.

I was told by our Chief Executive I was appointed by Beijing, so I think that is clear evidence enough that I have the trust of the Central People's Government in discharging this highest office in the civil service. I am content of the trust given to me and I will reciprocate that trust with my own sense of duty.

Reporter: But are you concerned a similar situation may occur as occurred with Mrs Chan, that she was told to better support Mr Tung, by Qian Qichen?

Mr Tsang: Well, let's put things in context. Mrs Chan and Mr Tung have said repeatedly they have co-operated very well, they have worked very well together. But you must remember, we are not actual genetic clones of each other, that we all think in identical ways; we are different personalities. This is the strength of the system. So Anson was different from C H. And Donald is different from Anson. But we share one common goal and that goal is to serve the people of Hong Kong to the best of our ability and using our own value system that is the rule of law and of total freedom. That is what we are going to do.

Reporter: The Asian crisis is behind us and now Hong Kong's small business people and people - low wage earners - are not feeling the pay-off of the economy, I mean from these businessmen's point of view, can you see that there is perhaps something wrong with the fundamentals - fundamentally wrong in Hong Kong's economy?

Mr Leung: I don't think there is anything fundamentally wrong with the policies. As a matter of fact I see that a lot of policies that the SAR Government has adopted so far have been very good for a lot of the common people, and indeed, I think a lot of people in the various sectors have benefited. What we are faced with is actually a change in the paradigm, meaning if you look at the two major trends of change in Hong Kong, one is that we have moved from an industrial economy to a knowledge economy, and that is a paradigm shift. It is not an evolution, indeed it is a paradigm shift, and the implications are tremendous. And I would hope that all of us can actually think hard about what the implications are, including its implication on education - that's why we have the education reform.

Secondly, the second change really is the merging of the Hong Kong economy with that of the Mainland. With the Mainland economy at a much more cost-effective basis and with all these changes, it would clearly make certain sectors in the community benefit and other sectors suffer. And so I think the Government will have to think about ways to help the entire economy and thereby every Hong Kong citizen somehow seize the opportunity and not being victimised by these changes.

Reporter: A few days ago you were reported as saying that during the ... that you went off to Istanbul ... go away while this was on ... It is unclear whether you were joking or whether you were trying to say that you actually intervened in the market against your own best interest, against your own best judgment. Could you please explicate on that a bit, explain to us what that was all about?

Mr Tsang: That's the pay for telling the truth to young people, then all this can catch up on you. I can tell you what happened. It was a very difficult situation in summer 1998, we were assailed on all sides and a recommendation was made to me, jointly by Mr Joseph Yam and Mr Raphael Hui, that we had to do something rather extraordinary in the market and they laid out a plan. The sort of plan that in my own personal economic philosophy was quite anathema. In a sense it was an incursion in the market. Then I weighed up the whole thing and I believe, like other market movements, sometimes these things go away and I hoped that perhaps we'd put it aside for a few days the thing might just go away. And right at that time I had already committed to an inaugural flight to Istanbul, so I took the flight to Istanbul for one day. During this period Mr Hui was on the phone all the time telling me what was going on hour by hour. When I came back I realised that the situation was much more serious than I had thought so. We laid out a plan and decided to intervene in the market. And what happened is history, you know about that. But it was indeed the case that in the process of consideration, I tried to detach myself from the scene, hoping that I would be able to make some objective assessment, but the markets just overwhelmed me at that time - they were collapsing between my ears.

Reporter: Mr Leung, about the 1998 intervention, did you support the intervention from the beginning, and if you've come around to supporting it now, at what point and what made you support it?

Mr Leung: Well, I suppose all these actions you have to judge by the result, and also the auxiliary actions. Clearly, as a kind of advocator of a market economy, undue intervention or undue interference by the Government is not a very good thing, but at that point of time I believed that there was not really a normal market situation. The markets had been manipulated and when the markets were manipulated it wasn't really free markets. And since I am a true believer of the free market, any actions that can restore the market to a free market, away from manipulation, would be a correct move.

Reporter: Is it your last Budget?

Mr Tsang: It would be my last Budget.

Reporter: Any surprises? Can you give us some preview? What can we expect?

Mr Tsang: You can't expect me to give you some but I'll give you a little secret, I will show my Budget to Mr Leung before it is delivered.

Transcript of Chief Secretary for Administration (Designate) & Financial Secretary (Designate) (Chinese part)

End/Thursday, February 15, 2001

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