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Following is a transcript of remarks by the Chief Executive, Mr Donald Tsang, at the question-and-answer session of the Joint Business Community Luncheon at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre today (November 3):
Question: Mr Tsang, I'm Jimmy Ng of the Chinese Manufactures' Association. The National 12th Five Year Plan will soon be taking off next year. And it's anticipated that the Central Government will call for transformation of the rate of the economic growth. We as manufactures are bound to face more challenges and pressure for industrial restructuring and upgrading. In this regard, will the HKSAR Government come up with more concrete plans to help us in this regard?
Chief Executive: First of all, my Administration has been actively working with the Central Planning Commission in Beijing to ensure that the Hong Kong priorities will be enshrined in the forthcoming 12th Five Year Plan. And we are also working very hard with the Guangdong authorities and urge the Beijing authorities to ensure that the regional development priorities will be fully reflected in the Five Year Plan. All these will be translated, in the end, into business opportunities for enterprises in Hong Kong, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises. And as you know, our help and assistance for enterprises in Hong Kong, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, is a continuing process. Before the crisis, the financial crisis, we had been helping them with various funds we had. During the crisis, we had special measures to help them as regards their securing of finance from banking circles. In the meantime, we continue a number of funds for the surging development and strive to be effective. We also, as you know, ask various organisations in Hong Kong, for instance, Trade Development Council to help promotion, and Productivity Council to help upgrading and restructuring. At the same time, we also urge the Guangdong authorities and the Central Government to be moderate in terms of taxation change concerning the impact on the small and medium-sized enterprises. All these efforts will continue. And if there's any special challenge arising out of the 12th Five Year Plan, or any prospects whilst the challenges are emerging, the HKSAR Government will not sit on our hands. We will help our enterprises to ensure they will have a continuing strength of success on the Mainland, and try to make sure their interests will be protected while the plan is implemented. But of course it is a national plan. While it may benefit a lot of people, it may not benefit others. It may even harm some others. If that is the case, we'll make sure the harm will be removed or kept to the minimum. But we must keep our dialogue with each other, the industry, the SAR Government, and between myself and the Guangdong authorities, where most of our enterprises are situated, particularly with the production and the manufacturing side, and also with Beijing. If we keep our dialogue open, I'm sure I'll be able to listen to your views, and we'll convey these views, to the responsible authorities on the Mainland, and make sure that they will not behave in a way that will be inimical towards our fundamental interests. So I'm prepared to work with you. And I'm quite hopeful the next Five Year Plan will give us a fundamental lift in terms of economic performance. If the impact hits on the margin of some of our trade, please alert us and we'll try to do our best.
Question: David O'Rear, General Chamber of Commerce. It seems like every time we turn around there's some new consultation on large scale legislative programme, whether it's the minimum wage, competition law, nutrition labelling or something that's going to require business to produce new documentation to go through some new certification or registration process. So my question is whether there has been any effort to look at the impact of regulation - a regulatory impact assessment - to understand better the costs to doing business that these new regulations impose.
Chief Executive: That's a very fair question. When we introduce major policy change, for example the minimum wage or even labelling law, there is a long process of consultation and that will be followed by a long period of drafting legislation. Then there will be debates in the Legislative Council and another round of consultation, then comes policy enactment. From the early stage of policy formulation the impact on different sectors of the community will be assessed, and costs will be evaluated against the benefits we will derive from the new policy. It will never be overlooked. But it doesn't mean it can be done without costs for anybody. But again, every new policy should bring in new opportunities, new improvements to the social good. Always, always we have to balance these things at the end of the day. As I mentioned in the speech, times are changing and the community moves on. There are great expectations in the community. They work hard and they want a fair deal and I think this is not unfair. From a government point of view we have to arbitrate to make sure that profits are being shared out fairly. But we are a capitalistic society and we want a light-handed approach to all social policies. But times are changing and we cannot be forever left behind. For instance, in the case of the minimum wage, if the wage is so low, not only will it not be able to support the family but it will also impact on our social welfare spending. If that is the case, the wider public interest is at stake and therefore we have to do something after we have discovered that a voluntary way of dealing with this will not be effective. Similarly, with our proposal on standard working hours I can assure you, at least from my point of view, although it will impose costs it will bring enormous benefits if implemented. We ask people to be a life long learner, to continue to enrich yourself by studying new things. I ask people to do this and I expect to do it myself, but I find I don't have the time. I wake up each morning at six if I'm lucky, otherwise I might wake up at four and finish studying my papers. And then I do all my things, my meetings. By five o'clock if I have a chance I do some exercises. And then six o'clock I'm back again for dinner appointment, and this takes me through to midnight. I find I have hardly any spare time for myself. Then after reading the Bible which I need to do I have hardly any time to do anything else except newspapers and professional magazines. I have no time to enrich myself. But I think it's important I keep up with it. But for a 28 or 33 year-old professional to upgrade himself or herself we must give them time to do it. Similarly with workers themselves. There will be costs involved but there will be benefits as I mentioned, to the companies and the community. Don't worry, these sorts of policies take time. Do you know how long we debated on the competition law? Over a decade. How long we debated on the minimum wage? Oh, from time immemorial! So, on the question of standard working hours we must be very careful. Let's lay out all the costs. Let's lay out all the advantages and benefits. Let's debate it and let's make up our minds. Hong Kong cannot stop where we are. We must continue to progress economically and socially and be competitive. We must be a harmonious society. I am afraid standard working hours will become a sticking point before too long and I want to do it before it becomes a real issue for all of us. We will do all we can to analyse all costs including impact studies of all kinds and a full debate before we make a move. This is something we need to speak about and talk about.
Question: David for Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors Hong Kong. We represent the property profession. We welcome your new policies on housing, and particularly that you address the core problem here which is the new supply. So we would like to thank you for that. However, there is another sector where I think we have a similar problem which is the supply of grade A office space, not only our rents now, again the most expensive in the world, but it is now becoming difficult for major space users to find office space in Hong Kong, which obviously will have a knock-on effect with the employment prospects, and these are not people who want to go into converted industrial buildings in Kowloon Bay, now I am just wondering what the government policy is gonna be to ensure we have enough land for prime offices going forward.
Chief Executive: Well, the Hong Kong area is built up, particularly in the central business district, but thank you for raising this. We must have balanced development, for instance, in the redevelopment in Central area there, redevelopment of the Central Government Offices, we have already planned that we are going to preserve one whole block, the East Wing and the Main Wing of the Central Government Offices when we all move to Tamar in summer next year. But the West Wing would be converted for commercial use. This is under consultation at the moment. But some politicians are saying well, sorry we don't need it, but we should turn it into a turf and raise lambs and cattle. We must make a balance somewhere. In Central areas, we have taken away from a land sale programme the redevelopment of Central market as you know. This is being converted into something which becomes a little lung and a recreation area for the business community in Central area, and that would take away some commercial development space there. But I hope the West Wing of Central Government Offices will be the next input into the market, and that is important. The business community, the professional bodies should make your case clear. I believe there is a need for it because our business community cannot stand still, particular commercial centre, the heart of Hong Kong cannot stop upgrading itself and we must not price ourselves out of the regional business market by allowing rents to rise to impossible levels. For that reason, further input would be necessary, and we must make sure adequate supply, and I would do that. But you have to help me. Some of these development plans is open for consultation. You then express your views. Let the environmentalists express their views. Let everybody speaks up and then at the end of the day, I am sure we will get a good compromise. But I agree entirely with you now we embark on the redevelopment in any region, we must not ignore the needs of the business sector as well. We must not ignore the needs of the middle class to buy homes. We must not ignore the need of the grassroots people to have public housing. We must not ignore the needs of the business sector to have somewhere to operate the business. And we will do that. But we all have to speak up because when we try to move to Tamar, people argue that we should not go there, that should again be another park for raising cattle. And this would be another war we need to fight as well. I believe we have provided sufficient green and we are going to provide more green in Central. But we also need new office space.
Ends/Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Issued at HKT 22:15
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