Tung Stresses Importance of Restructuring to HK Economy

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, February 27, 2002

Tung Stresses Importance of Restructuring to HK Economy

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Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee Hwa Tuesday stressed the importance of restructuring to Hong Kong's sustained economic growth at the briefing session on the Community Investment and Inclusion Fund.

"To sustain economic growth, it is imperative for our economy to be restructured to move to the knowledge economy and high value-added services," Tung said when officiating at the briefing and consultation session on the Community Investment and Inclusion Fund.

"We face the challenge brought by the combined impact of globalization, advances in information technology and rapid development in mainland cities," he said, adding that the slowdownin external economy aggravates the situation and the unemployment rate will continue to rise, hitting hard particularly the less skilled and disadvantaged groups.

Economic restructuring, as experienced in foreign countries, will take time, and may be as long as some years, he noted. "I fully understand the pressures many individuals and families are facing to adapt to changes in the process," Tung said.

To overcome the challenges, the Hong Kong government has taskeditself with priorities to promote economic growth, to improve business environment, to attract investments to create job opportunities, and to strengthen training and retraining services to enhance skills and competitiveness of our labor force.

"We need to look after the disadvantaged and the vulnerable, supporting them and helping them to relieve the pressures," the Chief Executive said.

Over the past four years, the government has bolstered its efforts to improve social services, manifested in practical terms by an increased annual expenditure of 20.8 billion HK dollars (2.66 billion U.S. dollars) in 1997 to 30.2 billion HK dollars (3.87 billion U.S. dollars) this year.

"We have seen significant improvements in family services, child care services, elderly services, youth services and new immigrant services," Tung said.

In his Policy Address last October, Tung undertook to establisha Community Investment and Inclusion Fund with an initial 300 million HK dollars grant. The objective of the Fund is to bring the community closer together, to foster a sense of belonging and to build up shared values by encouraging mutual concern, support and assistance.

Tung said that the Community Investment and Inclusion Fund represents a new mode of interaction between the Government and the community, differing mostly from other government projects in that the resources will not be consumed by conventional top-down initiatives.

Rather, they will be used to encourage bottom-up solutions fromlocal groups to address their own issues and to promote their own well-being, he said. "We also intend to use the Fund as a vehicle to encourage and facilitate cross-sectoral cooperation between private and non-government sectors," he added.

Tung said that he earnestly hopes all sectors of the community will lend full support to the Fund to promote community participation and develop a spirit of mutual aid.

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