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Following is the transcript of remarks of the media session by the Secretary for Transport and Housing, Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung, after attending a radio programme this morning (June 25):
Reporter: Professor Cheung, there is a lot of oppositions toward the premium taxi plan. A lot of industry people say that they could just improve their current taxi services and lawmakers are saying that it will only add to congestion. What do you have to say about these criticisms?
Secretary for Transport and Housing: I think it's too early to form a final view on the matter. I do not think that the initial idea of premium taxi is unpopular. Of course, there is reaction from members of the trade, but on the other hand, as long as the Government could tell from monitoring the discussion, the community and the internet, I think there is also support from the community to a new kind of service. Of course we are always conscious of the need to balance different stakeholders' views and interests. And that's what we are trying to do. So we haven't come to the stage of finalising the details and we are still engaging different stakeholders. We have told the LegCo Transport Panel that we aim to finalise the full details by the end of the year. We hope that whatever we come up with, will be workable, will present multiple choices to users of taxi service. As I said from time to time, we position whatever measures we are going to roll out on preserving the existing taxi service, which is still the bulk of point-to-point personalised transport service in Hong Kong.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Saturday, June 25, 2016
Issued at HKT 11:47
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