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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mrs Carrie Lam, at a media session after attending TV programme "On the Record" this morning (October 26):
Reporter: On the population policy consultation paper, it has come under a lot of criticisms. Some say the direction is not correct, and others say the government is just being lazy for not training up local talents. Instead, they opt to attract overseas talents. What is your view?
Chief Secretary for Administration: The criticisms of the population policy consultation paper are not unexpected. Because first of all, this is a very contentious issue. And secondly, it is multifaceted. It includes many, many areas. But we have chosen to focus on areas which have not been deliberated or being looked at by other committees. So, some critics might find the report rather selective in the issues that it is going to deal with. But I want to explain that, of all the other issues like retirement protection, like housing supply, health and medical services, in anticipation of an ageing population, all these issues are being examined by other more relevant committees. And ultimately all these will be brought together again to reflect the needs of an ageing population. That's my explanation to that.
Secondly, on training and re-training for local people. In order to provide more local talents, this is our top priority. So, actually in the report, we have put training of local talents before admission of overseas talents. So the Government will do its very best in order to assess the manpower needs of our local economy, and through our various training and educational institutes to enhance the training in order to meet those manpower needs.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Saturday, October 26, 2013
Issued at HKT 11:44
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