Following is the transcript of remarks by the Acting Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Stephen Sui, after attending the meeting of the Subcommittee on Children's Rights of the Legislative Council today (January 17):

Reporter: Do you think it is hard to handle some of the issues, especially some related to the Policy Address tomorrow?

Acting Secretary for Labour and Welfare: As I just pointed out, some of the very important issues that we have to handle is about retirement protection, offsetting mechanism under the Mandatory Provident Fund, and also standard working hours. Apart from that, we will continue to have a lot of policy initiatives relating to welfare portfolio, for example on the elderly side, rehabilitation side, and as I just mentioned in the Legislative Council meeting, the foster care services; and also a number of initiatives on the labour side. We have quite a number of policy initiatives to be followed up in the coming few months.

Reporter: Is there any difficulty regarding the Policy Address tomorrow?

Acting Secretary for Labour and Welfare: Of course we will try our utmost and I'll co-operate with our civil service team which, as I have said, is very best, very efficient and very dedicated. Under our close co-operation, I believe we can handle all the challenges in the coming few months.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)

Ends/Tuesday, January 17, 2017
Issued at HKT 16:15

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