تا

Mr. HO, please continue.

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HIS EXCELLENCY THE

PRESIDENT=

Mr. Edward HO

while

on the subject of housing,

I

Well

must express some concern in the following areas. Firstly, the

ambitious

public

housing

programme

and

the

current

active

construction activities in the private sector, have contributed to

labour acute

back to

again,

manpower cots causes inflation and undesirable

shortage problem

unusual construction

and

workmanship. There is a shortage of experienced contractors skilled‡labour to provide a healthy competition in the construction

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resources

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industry.

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Secondly, it is questionable, at this

stage, whether land production can keep pace with demand to cater In addition to a public housing programme after the mid-1990s. to the building of new housing/estates many of the old estates will have to be redeveloped, either because they have outlived their economic lives or because their unsatisfactory general

environments and densities would not living

be considered

acceptable today. Part of this demand for land can be met by re- zoning, but I strongly believe that the full demand can only be met on which should by major harbour reclamation schemes, the work commence in the next two years in order to generate the necessary

lead time in production.

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Lastly, although many opinions have 29 been expresed in this Council by Members last year and this year, on various aspects of taxation, I shall briefly put forward my views on this subject. Since there are only 700,000 (seven hundred- thousand taxpayers in Hong Kong, and 7.6 per cent of them, or 0.94 per cent of the total population contribute to 56 per cent of the salaries/tax yield clearly, it would be desirable to broaden the tax base if we are to follow the philosophy of prudent management of our economy. This inevitably means that any proposed taxation.

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