GIS Through The Years

Chapter 24: The Crucial Years

Irene Yau directed GIS through 11 of the most crucial years of Hong Kong's history. "They were very interesting and eventful years," she recalls, "and for me personally they were very challenging years that I thoroughly enjoyed. I had more fun than most other civil servants because I was always in the thick of things.

"I felt privileged to be present at so many major events, whether through contributing towards the planning, playing a role in the organisation of media arrangements or merely participating. And through my involvement, I believe my colleagues in GIS also enjoyed a more colourful life than they would have in other government careers.

"In the first years of my directorship I concentrated primarily on the local scene, but in later years I devoted much of my time to overseas promotion. I was involved with some pretty high-powered delegations to various parts of the world: America, Europe, Japan, Australia. We staged conferences, seminars, gala dinners; we took young Hong Kong talent along with us to present artistic performances.

"I travelled in America with people like Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh, who is now a Bond girl. We had a great time, but it was all for a good cause. The objective was to tell the world that Hong Kong had more than money; it had heart and soul and a love of culture. That helped to combat some of the negative press coverage Hong Kong was getting over its future prospects."

In the course of this tenure she was to dispel numerous rumours that she would be retiring to join her family in Vancouver, and survive major changes in the government's overall information apparatus, chief of which was the appointment by her former ISD boss and current Chief Secretary, Sir David Ford, of an Information Co-ordinator.

Instituted in 1989, the role of the Information Co-ordinator in the Chief Secretary's Office was described, in the 1990 Annual Report, as maintaining 'overall policy responsibility for the government's relations with the media, while the Information Services Department is the executive agency for implementing that policy'.

The post was in fact a logical development of Hong Kong's determination to improve its image overseas. The Information Co-ordinator's office was to maintain close contact with the government's overseas offices, and with consuls-general and commissioners of foreign countries in Hong Kong. Influential politicians, parliamentarians, government officials and businessmen from countries enjoying close relations with Hong Kong would be invited to visit the territory and see conditions for themselves.

Programmes of overseas speaking engagements for senior government officials and prominent local personalities would also be co-ordinated through this office, with suitable platforms arranged for them to speak on Hong Kong before specially targeted audiences. The whole operation went back to an expanded overseas Division under a Deputy Director in 1992.

And inevitably ISD's own reinforced OPRS personnel would contribute a major input to this extensive undertaking, preparing special information packages and brochures designed to appeal to those targeted audiences. A significant contribution to this input was a handsomely encased twin-volume publication entitled 'Hong Kong - Asia's Business Centre', produced in 1992 when Hong Kong hosted the 25th annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the Asian Development Bank.

Greater emphasis on overseas public relations also required reinforcement of the publicity posts attached to the burgeoning overseas offices. Paul Brown and John Chuan (now CIO in New York) were among a succession of officers to replace Kerry McGlynn in London. McGlynn was later seconded from ISD as Director of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in New York, the only non-Administrative Officer to have headed an overseas office for the Hong Kong Government. George Yuen went to the Toronto Office as CIO, a post now held by Frank Chuan, brother of John.

By April 1999 there were 10 offices around the world where ISD staff were manning the PR front lines - New York, Washington, San Francisco, Toronto, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, Brussels and London and the most recent addition, Beijing.


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