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Following is a transcript of remarks by the Chief Executive, Mr Donald Tsang, at a media session after the 14th Plenary of the Hong Kong/Guangdong Co-operation Joint Conference held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre today (August 23):
Reporter: Mr Tsang, could you speak a few words in English about the conference you've had and how this co-operation with Guangdong will benefit people of Hong Kong, and what should the people of Hong Kong do to grab hold of these opportunities?
Chief Executive: Most of all, this has been the 14th meeting. Our co-operation, particularly economic integration between Hong Kong and Guangdong, has been deep and broad. It has brought quite specific benefits to the people of Hong Kong. Just look at how quickly Hong Kong recovered from this global financial crisis. Hong Kong is one of the earliest territories which emerged from the crisis and began its own recovery and growth, and I believe one of the major reasons for this rapid recovery is the reliance on the economic growth in the Mainland, particularly in the Pearl River Delta and Guangdong Province. Had we not got the sufficient number of entities, manufacturers, producers operating in the Mainland, producing goods for the rest of the world, and maintained our export capability and ability to sell into the Mainland market, we would not have been able to recover so quickly.
Integration has grown beyond just simply trade. In terms of finance, we are now the most important syndication centre for funding, and particularly, for the Renminbi (RMB) trade, we are doing a genuine service for Guangdong and for the Mainland. Our total trade settlement value is likely to exceed RMB1 trillion this year, and the bulk of that is coming from Guangdong Province.
This trade will bring an enormous amount of business to our banking sector, to our financial sector, and again to the people employed by these entities in Hong Kong. I'm sure it's reflected in the income, reflected in the standard of living of Hong Kong people. And not only that, because of our integration, we have gone beyond the question of finance and economic development, going to social areas. For instance, Guangdong Province already licensed 10 clinics for the Hong Kong professionals to practise there and deliver service, Hong Kong-style medical services, in the Mainland. There is also larger co-operation among banking sectors, among our universities. I'm sure they will bring a larger scope for Hong Kong students, for Hong Kong's population as well.
So, overall, you can see that the benefit goes beyond just simply the economic field. It goes into food safety, travel convenience and infrastructure development, as well as more things like air pollution control and a long-term plan for carbon emissions and so on. To me, it is very meaningful work for the last decade.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Issued at HKT 18:12
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