Transcript of remarks at press conference on preparations for celebrating 20th anniversary of establishment of HKSAR
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Reporter: Compared to the 10th anniversary celebrations, how does this differ from that and how special it is? And do you expect more chaos or even lower public participation compared to that owing to the CE elections or the recent controversies in Hong Kong? Thank you.
Chief Secretary for Administration: Well, what we have just described are all celebration activities which should be of fun and enjoyment to the people of Hong Kong, so I really do not expect or anticipate that these activities would by themselves cause disruption, protests and so on. But there could be some order issues, for example, crowd control and things like that, and we are very well prepared for that. I am not worried about that particular aspect.
As far as the comparison with the 10th anniversary, as I've said at the beginning, because coincidentally I was also deeply involved in the planning for the 10th anniversary in my then capacity as the Permanent Secretary for Home Affairs, I could share with you that there is a major difference between the 20th anniversary celebrations and the 10th anniversary celebrations. You remember in my presentation, I covered three main aspects. I would say that for the 10th anniversary, we probably had just focused on the first aspect, that is, organising a lot of celebration activities, concerts, sports activities and so on. But in the 20th anniversary, we have gone further to do two other things - two other categories of things. One is to capitalise on Hong Kong's strengths and competitiveness and look ahead to see which are the areas that we want to develop, and we'll organise activities that are related to that particular aspect. For example, in this term of Government, the Chief Executive is very keen to press ahead with innovation and technology, and myself and Mr Greg So, the Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development over there, we are very keen about promoting creative industries and culture. You'll see that we are hosting quite a number of international conferences relating to these themes. And we're also putting a lot more attention on young people -that is a major difference. Another difference is we will mobilise to a greater extent our overseas and Mainland offices. The 20th anniversary is a very memorable occasion, and we want to make use of our overseas and Mainland network to promote the successful implementation of "one country, two systems", the continuous prosperity of Hong Kong and the opportunities lie ahead, for example the Belt and Road. So these are the two main differences with the 10th anniversary.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Friday, December 2, 2016
Issued at HKT 20:08
Issued at HKT 20:08
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