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Following is the transcript of the acting Financial Secretary, Mr John Tsang, speaking to the media after officiating at the opening of the Innovation Expo 2005 today (September 29):
Reporter: What is your reaction to the significant drop of ranking in the World Economic Forum?
Acting FS: As I was saying, if there are things that we need to improve, we will. But I think a lot of these institutions may not have a very good, clear understanding of Hong Kong. They may have miscalculated the points. We will be talking with these people in the near future to bring about a better understanding of where we are.
Reporter: What do you think they may have misunderstood?
Acting FS: They may not have a broad and macro understanding of what Hong Kong is all about. Another one was suggesting whether they would affect the commercial decisions of investors. I do not think that would. Because I think our commercial investors have a very good understanding of Hong Kong. You can see the investments in Hong Kong have continued to improve. There is no indication of any abatement.
Reporter: What specifically would you tell them to change their views?
Acting FS: I would want to hear from them how they calculated all these things, what sorts of indicators are they using and so forth. All that is not so clear.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript)
Ends/Thursday, September 29, 2005
Issued at HKT 12:20
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