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Following is a question by the Hon Wu King Cheong, Henry and a written reply by the Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, Mr Frederick Ma, in the Legislative Council today (October 15):
Question:
In June this year, the Government published in the Gazette the list of firms for the provision of financial consultancy services to bureaux/departments (the list), and set out at the same time the two criteria used for selection of firms to be included in the list: (i) the business of the firm is to provide financial consultancy services; and (ii) the firm must be a registered company in Hong Kong or possess a valid Hong Kong business registration certificate. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) whether it has adopted criteria other than the two listed above, such as the size of the firm, for selection of firms for inclusion in the list;
(b) of the number of firms which applied for inclusion in the list in the past three years, the number of rejected cases among them and the reasons for rejection; the number of specific tasks for which bureaux/departments invited firms on the list to submit expressions of interest, with details such as the names of the tasks, the amount of financial consultancy fees involved, the names of firms invited to submit expressions of interest and the names of those selected; and
(c) of the mechanism for continuously monitoring whether the firms should be retained on the list?
Reply:
Madam President,
(a) Apart from the two criteria published in the Gazette, we have not adopted other criteria for selection of firms for inclusion in the list of financial consultants. Consulting firms will be included in the list upon their application by providing supporting records and certain basic information on areas of specialisation and previous consultancy studies to demonstrate that they meet the criteria.
(b) During the years from 2000-01 to 2002-03, nine new consulting firms applied for inclusion in the list of financial consultants and their applications were all accepted.
A summary showing the names of the major financial consultancies (note) conducted in the past three years, the amount of consultancy fees involved and the names of those consulting firms selected is given in the attached Annex. In most cases, we invite all firms on the list to submit expressions of interest. In special cases of restricted tender, it is not appropriate to disclose the names of the unsuccessful bidders without their consent.
(c) We review the list regularly to ensure that up-to-date information on the consulting firms is maintained and to ascertain whether there are circumstances (e.g. cessation of business or cessation of provision of financial consultancy services) requiring deletion of the name of a particular firm from the list. We have also put in place a mechanism to continuously monitor the performance of these consulting firms.
Note: Financial consultancies exceeding $1.3 million which have to be approved by the Central Consultants Selection Board.
Ends/Wednesday, October 15, 2003
Ends/Wednesday, October 15, 2003
Issued at HKT 15:43
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