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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mrs Carrie Lam, at a media session after a meeting with the Study Group on Constitutional Development of the New People's Party at the Legislative Council Complex this morning (April 9):
Reporter: Mrs Lam, how did today's meeting go? Did you discuss civil recommendations, and are you still optimistic about reaching a consensus?
Chief Secretary for Administration: Basically, we spent over one and a half hours this morning to listen to the views collated by the New People's Party through their special working group. I am very appreciative of the efforts made by the New People's Party in sort of bringing together a lot of views. The main emphasis of our exchange and discussion was on the composition of the future nominating committee, because in our consultative (consultation) document we have asked a series of questions on whether we need to broaden the representativeness of the nominating committee, on whether we need to increase the numbers from the current 1,200 to a higher number of representatives in the nominating committee. So by and large I find this morning's discussion very useful and very constructive, because I understand that it's not just the views of the special working group of the New People's Party, but members of this group, especially Regina herself, have gone all out to consult the various stakeholders, and so the views put to us this morning actually did reflect the views of quite a large number of stakeholders. I believe that, as long as in this consultation period we receive very concrete proposals and these proposals are based on provisions in the Basic Law, there will stand a very good chance for us to forge consensus and to achieve the objective of universal suffrage in the selection of the Chief Executive in 2017.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Issued at HKT 12:45
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