******************************************************
The Chief Secretary for Administration, Mrs Carrie Lam, visited the Caritas Harold H.W. Lee Care and Attention Home in Sha Tin this morning (January 31) to extend her Lunar New Year greetings to the elderly and their families as well as members of staff.
In recent years, Mrs Lam has been visiting elderly people living in nursing homes or elderly singletons during Lunar New Year to share a good time with the elderly and offer them her Lunar New Year greetings. She also toured the home's facilities to better understand the services provided there. She encouraged the staff to continue providing quality services to the elderly.
Mrs Lam then proceeded to Lam Tsuen in Tai Po to officiate at the lantern lighting ceremony of the Hong Kong Well-wishing Festival 2014, which was joined by the Chairman of Heung Yee Kuk, Mr Lau Wong-fat, and the Chairman of the Tai Po District Council, Mr Cheung Hok-ming. They witnessed the opening of this annual well-wishing festival and wished Hong Kong a prosperous year ahead along with local residents and overseas visitors.
This was followed by a visit to the Shenzhen Bay Control Point. Accompanied by the Director of Immigration, Mr Chan Kwok-ki, Mrs Lam met with frontline officers of the Immigration Department, the Hong Kong Police Force, the Customs and Excise Department (C&ED), the Department of Health (DH) and the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) to learn more about their work.
As today is the first day of the Lunar New year, Mrs Lam extended her greetings to the frontline staff as well as members of the public while inspecting the immigration control point. She expressed her gratitude to the government staff for serving with determination and dedication, as well as providing efficient services for the huge number of travellers over the Lunar New Year. She also noted that in view of the risk of human infection from avian influenza A(H7N9) and the cases imported into Hong Kong in recent months, C&ED, DH and FEHD have stepped up their efforts to ensure that no incoming passengers bring live poultry or undercooked poultry meat into Hong Kong, and to provide health surveillance services such as temperature checks.
Mrs Lam then went to the Hong Kong Stadium to attend the opening ceremony of the Lunar New Year Cup 2014. Speaking at the ceremony, Mrs Lam said the Cup is one of the major events of the "Bless Hong Kong" Campaign, which is organised by the Societal Engagement Task Force of the Commission on Poverty. She took the opportunity to thank the event organisers for their care for the underprivileged. The organisers offered 8 000 entry tickets to low-income families and students to watch the Lunar New Year football matches over two days.
Mrs Lam will officiate at the 2014 Lunar New Year Fireworks Display in her capacity as the Acting Chief Executive tomorrow.
Ends/Friday, January 31, 2014
Issued at HKT 17:46
NNNN
