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Following is the speech by the Financial Secretary, Mr Henry Tang, at The Hong Kong Jockey Club Community Day Luncheon at Sha Tin Racecourse today (June 25):
Mr (Ronald) Arculli, Mr (Tobias) Brown, ladies and gentlemen,
There is perhaps only one thing more gratifying than being invited to a pleasant and meaningful sporting occasion amongst friends on a beautiful Sunday afternoon ﷿ and that is being invited back again. It was therefore with great pleasure that I accepted The Hong Kong Jockey Club's kind invitation to join you today at the second Annual Community Day Race Meeting, having inaugurated this initiative last year.
Of all the memorable racing events that take place each year in Sha Tin, I believe this is one of the most significant, not only because it highlights the long-standing and successful partnership between horse racing and our local community, and it actually gives something back to the community in terms of what the Jockey Club has done in charitable organisations and in contribution to tax revenue, in which case the dollars go back to the community. This is a unique feature of Hong Kong's life and one that is widely admired around the world.
Today's event not only provides an opportunity for the Club to re-emphasise this important partnership, it also gives me an opportunity to meet and say sincere thank-you to people in non-government organisations and charitable groups, many of them volunteers who volunteer their time and many their money to the Club to bring all these vital community services to reality. Without your help and support, these projects would not happen. And we owe you a great debt of gratitude. I would like to say a very sincere thank-you to you.
As chairman of Commission on Poverty, I know that combating poverty and providing support to the less privileged will be most effective with multi-sector collaboration. The success of the Jockey Club ﷿ NGOs models show a lot of the merits of this approach. I sincerely hope that more partnerships of this kind, especially those involving the business sector, will be formed in future. This will go a long way towards building a caring and a more harmonised community.
Last year, at this very occasion, I shared with you my intention to allocate revenue to be collected under the Personalised Vehicle Registration Marks scheme, estimated at $70 million a year, to poverty alleviation initiatives. Today, I am glad to say that cars carrying these special registration marks will soon hit the streets, thus expressing our city's creativity and also the way we care for the community.
The revenue under this scheme will provide financial support to, among other things, a new "Enhancing Self-Reliance Through District Partnership" Programme of the Home Affairs Bureau, which encourages local employment, sustainable poverty alleviation initiatives and cross-sector collaboration. I look forward to your support and participation in this very worthy programme.
May I thank the Club once again for creating this meaningful event, and I would also like to add my personal thanks to Mr (Tobias) Brown for his generous donation of what is now The Hong Kong Jockey Club Community Trophy. Whatever the outcome of today's races, your presence and support to this event is already a good measure of the Community Day's success.
Thank you very much.
Ends/Sunday, June 25, 2006
Issued at HKT 15:11
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