Frictions won’t affect HK, mainland exchanges

Edited and Translated by Yao Chun, People's Daily Online

Donald Tsang, chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), recently expressed Hong Kongers’ inclusive attitude towards mainlanders, saying that in spite of small frictions Hong Kong welcome mainlanders and hopes that more Hong Kongers will go to the mainland so that the exchanges will be constant.

Reporter: Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland have always maintained a close cooperation. However some problems emerged in recent exchanges such as issues in tourism services, online spats between the mainland and Hong Kong netizens.

Donald Tsang: As an international metropolis Hong Kong welcomes people from all over the world. Hong Kong people understand and respect the cultural differences and such small frictions should be handled with an inclusive attitude.

After a few problems emerged in Hong Kong’s tourism industry, local authorities have made an overall inspection into the administrative and operational mechanism of tourism and put forward a series of measures to tighten the supervision over the reception of mainland travelers. For example, we stipulated that one tour group should be guided by a fixed guide and all the tour vehicles are registered in a traffic violation scoring system. With these measures, the current situation has changed a lot compared with that of one year ago.

Reporter: Recently mainland pregnant women flock to Hong Kong to give birth which has brought great pressure to local health care system. What is your comment on this phenomenon and what policy will Hong Kong adopt toward this issue?

Donald Tsang: We hope that people can understand that we must give priority to the health care of local pregnant women which is the main target of our services.

The local hospitals and relevant mainland departments have implemented various administrative controls and the problem has been solved a lot. We crack down on some agencies’ illegal acts of helping mainland women give birth in Hong Kong without any reservation. Coming to give birth in Hong Kong is no good for the health of the pregnant women, and the medical system of Hong Kong does not have such a big reception capacity.

But that does not mean that Hong Kong will not welcome mainlanders. We definitely need mainlanders to come to Hong Kong and also hope that more Hong Kongers will go to mainland so that the exchanges will be constant.

Source: Beijing News