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Following is the transcript of remarks (English portion) by the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Henry Tang, at a media session after attending a joint business community forum on constitutional development this evening (August 16):
Reporter: Can you say in English what do you think about the stock market today? Is it very volatile? Do you think Hong Kong has been affected by the global market slog?
Chief Secretary for Administration: Earlier this year I did an interview and I predicted that there will be a lot of volatility this year. And sure enough we have seen a lot of volatility. And the Financial Secretary has said earlier our market has handled the volume as well as the amount of transaction in a stable manner. We do not have any hiccup in our financial infrastructure and this is a full test that our infrastructure is sound and is well crafted. I would strongly urge every investor that they should always correctly manage the risk and also be able to sustain market fluctuations and volatility. So all investors should be very cautious in how to invest and our responsibility is to continue to monitor the market closely and ensure that it runs smoothly.
Reporter: What do you think about the views expressed by the business sector? Do you think the views are polarised? Because you said that there is main stream thinking?
Chief Secretary for Administration: Actually, I don't think the views are polarised as such. I think the business community has been very sensible and although they have expressed some anxiety that if the pace is too fast, then it would pose a challenge to the business community. But I would not say that there is a polarisation of views and the business community has always been very cautious and their concerns are that they would like to see a gradual and orderly progression.
Reporter: Do you think it is hard to scrap the functional constituency?
Chief Secretary for Administration: That is really up to them to decide on what is a gradual and orderly manner.
Reporter: In your welcoming remarks, you said that you pay a great deal of importance to the views expressed by the business community. Does that mean when you summarise the response to the green paper, they would get a higher priority?
Chief Secretary for Administration: No, there is no such thing as a higher priority or a lower priority. Two days ago, I was at the Hong Kong Federation of Women and their views certainly should be more than 50 per cent because more than 50 per cent are women today. Before that, I went to the Federation of Trade Unions. Business cannot succeed without the co-operation of the workers. It is always a co-operative effort. So the fact that I haven chosen these three organisations says a lot the importance I have placed on the co-operation between the employers and employees as well as different sectors of the community.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion.)
Ends/Thursday, August 16, 2007
Issued at HKT 23:33
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