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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, on poverty alleviation work after attending a radio programme today (September 30):
Reporter: Are you going to help the working poor with ....
Secretary for Labour and Welfare: Yes, we are seriously exploring the idea of providing a low-income supplement for working families with particularly dependent children. The idea is basically to promote employment, promote self-reliance and at the same time to help children, particularly children at schools, in order also to tackle the problem of intergenerational poverty. So it is a very important policy measure that we are now seriously considering. We will take account of the proposals in the public arena, proposals floated by the Hong Kong Council of Social Service and Oxfam, and also by other political parties. We will seriously examine them. We will take this idea back to the Commission on Poverty with a view to coming up with some concrete measures in the context of the Chief Executive's Policy Address next January.
Reporter: How these changes ....
Secretary for Labour and Welfare: Well, the answer is very simple. We want to turn Hong Kong into a more caring, more compassionate, more inclusive and cohesive community. And particularly we want to emphasise three elements. "A" is to promote employability and promote employment. Work, employment, is the best way out of poverty - point number one. Point two is we want also to promote self-reliance, it is very important. And by promoting self-reliance - it's not just cash handout, but also in terms of in-kind support, like child care or care-givers' support and so on and so forth. Training and retraining is also a very important element. The third thing is to tackle intergenerational poverty to help particularly children at risk. So all these will come into play in the next few years and we are determined to crack the problem of poverty in Hong Kong. We are serious about that.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Monday, September 30, 2013
Issued at HKT 13:19
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