 |
Roundup: Tung's Policy Address Warmly Received
Several government departments and organizations Wednesday welcomed Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee Hwa's policy address which draws up a series of measures to ease people's economic burden and stimulate the economic growth.
In his fifth policy address unveiled Wednesday, Tung highlighted five priority tasks, including the expansion of investment in education and enhancement of infrastructure and improvement of the business environment.
Also included are enhancing quality of living environment, relieving hardships of the social disadvantaged, and carrying out necessary structural adjustments and reforms within the government to improve the quality of administration.
In view of the difficulties facing small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), Tung said the government will input a further 600 million HK dollars (76.9 million U.S.dollars) to bring the total funding for four SME funding schemes established to help enterprises to 1.9 billion HK dollars (243.59 million U.S. dollars).
The Small and Medium Enterprises Committee welcomed Tung's decision, saying that as a result, "the number of SMEs which will benefit from the SME Export Marketing Fund will increase from the original projection of at least 20,000 to at least 30,000."
"Consequentially, the total number of SMEs which stand to benefit under the four funding schemes will increase from the original projection of at least 96,600 to at least 106,600," it added.
The Board of Education and the Education Commission expressed warm welcome to Tung's address which "placed education at the top of the government's social policy agenda and emphasized the government's commitment to continue to invest in education."
Tung vowed to invest heavily in education and achieve three targets, including raising the general standards of primary and secondary students through current education reforms, increasing the number of post-secondary places and promoting life-long learning.
"The initiatives not only address the difficulties and needs of frontline educators in implementing the education reform and in providing quality education, they also pay attention to the development needs of students as well as aiming to enhance the language foundation of students at an early stage," said Moses Cheng, chairman of the Board of Education.
The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) welcomed Tung's decision to relax restrictions to travelers from the Chinese mainland, believing it would greatly benefit Hong Kong's tourism industry and help offset the negative impact of the terrorist attacks in the U.S.
To facilitate visits to Hong Kong, Tung pledged to extend validity period for multi-entry business visas of mainland travelers from the present six months to 1 maximum of three years, with each duration of stay extended to 14 days.
The mainland market is very important to the short and medium-term development of Hong Kong's tourism market, and so the government's measures to facilitate visits of mainland tourists to Hong Kong are very helpful, said Clara Chong, the HKTB's executive director.
The Hong Kong Airport Authority embraced Tung's announcement to develop Hong Kong into a logistics hub and build a new exhibition center at the airport. "Logistics is a vital and natural industry not only for the airport, but for Hong Kong," said Victor Fung Kwok-king, chairman of the Airport Authority.
"The new exhibition center will provide a world-class facility to support the territory's growing exhibition industry while helping the AA generate more value of its passenger flow," he said.
The Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce said in a statement that it agreed with Tung's decisions to emphasize on education and economic restructuring, create new job opportunities, support the SMEs, and ease restrictions on tourists from the mainland.
"In all, the HKGCC felt the policy address met the challenge of balancing addressing the community's immediate needs with initiatives to strengthen Hong Kong's positioning, all in a very difficult economic environment," said Christopher Cheng, HKGCC chairman.
In This Section
|