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The following is the transcript of the opening remarks (English only) by the Chief Executive, Mr Donald Tsang, at a reception for representatives of foreign governments in Hong Kong at Government House today (July 31):
Chief Executive: Thank you very much for coming today at very short notice. You know the reason why. We have Dr Margaret Chan with us today. The Central People's Government has announced its decision to recommend Margaret as a candidate for election to the post of Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO). Of course, this is a recommendation that is fully supported by my administration and Hong Kong people are exceedingly proud about this nomination and we'll do whatever we can to support the election process.
For that reason I am asking you ladies and gentlemen to come here this afternoon to let you know the determination of this administration to put our own support behind this campaign, but at the same time to let you know why we feel this way. I know that some of you might represent countries who may eventually make nominations to WHO in competition of this ..... And this we fully respect. I am sure it will be an open, competitive process and I am sure that WHO will eventually benefit by having the best candidate for the job. For on our part, we believe Margaret is an eminently suitable and highly commendable candidate for this purpose. Margaret has worked in Hong Kong for 25 years. She is out and out a Hong Kong girl. She has been involved in different levels of the Hong Kong administration. She worked her way up into the highest directorate post in the Hong Kong administration before she eventually retired.
And during her career in Hong Kong, her professional experience, her knowledge of Hong Kong's health administration system, of which we are pretty proud, and her work has been fully recognised by the community at large. The last three years she has spent her time with WHO, during which time she has developed another level of skill in helping this global organisation cope with the challenges it had in a period that was not uneventful. There are things I would ask you to consider particularly in terms of, I believe, is the greatest merit in support of Margaret's case. She has been involved in the directorate position in Hong Kong during the period when we experienced a traumatic crisis of SARS, and our performance during that episode is well-known to all of you. We have made enormous effort in tackling that problem and at the same time our professionals made the ultimate sacrifice as well.
But during this period we showed to the rest of the world that our community not only coalesced together but our medical professionals, our scientists reacted quite positively in that, from the research isolation of the virus to finally stopping the epidemic from spreading. Margaret was leader of the team. In other words she has firsthand experience in dealing with a global virus, an epidemic, in a most highly densely populated urban sector - an experience which was quite rare in the rest of the world. She was able to succeed in that campaign.
Secondly, I want to point out another merit. Margaret is one of the best team players we have in Hong Kong. That is an important asset in a global organisation ..... she is able to work with a team, a multi-disciplinary team. Her experience in WHO exposed her to a variety of nationalities and I am quite confident she will be able to deliver not only what WHO wants but also will be able to lead WHO as a multi-national organisation, taking her leadership, bringing it to tackle whatever problems it had. God forbid if the Avian Influenza is going to show its ugly head in the coming years. But if it did, I would be very confident and I think we would all be grateful if Margaret was given an opportunity to serve in the leadership position of WHO in dealing with a disaster of that kind. So I do commend Dr Margaret Chan to you and wish very much that you convey our feelings to your capitals of our decision. It is a decision we made with great care and the decision is made at Central Government level, which the whole Hong Kong community will support.
Thank you very much for coming to this and let me share with you my own feelings on this.
Ends/Monday, July 31, 2006
Issued at HKT 17:20
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