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partisan knockabout.] We have serious work to do. So I look
forward to getting down to work with all men and women of goodwill who share my aim - to do all we can to improve the Government of Hong Kong in the very special circumstances
that pertain here.
To govern is to choose, and choice can often invite
hard and difficult choices. I will not shirk those choices. Political leadership consists in setting out clearly what the decision should be when all the talking is over of winning consent for those decisions; and mobilising support through thorough and open public debate.
I want- while preserving the authority and dignity of my proud office, and without skirting around in any way the responsibilities which I bear to make my Governorship as
open and accessible as possible. But the ultimate
responsiblity for leadership rests with me.
Secondly, it goes without saying that our personal and
collective ambitions and prospects are intimately linked to
the propects of the economy in which we work. Hong Kong
knows better than most cities that it cannot rest on laurels
won in previous years
last year, this year, even today.
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We have to strive relentlessly to maintain and improve
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our competiveness for the world of tomorrow, certain only of
one thing that our competitors will do the same. We will continue to build for the future. The airport
project is a remarkable undertaking. We mean to
[complete it]. And when it is completed, it will act as a
dynamo for wealth creation, not just in Hong Kong, but in
Guandong and more widely in Southern China. But we also have to attend to more paraochial but important concerns.
We have, for example, to take the present level of inflation
very seriously. When the public express anxiety about the rate of inflation, they are right to do so. Inflation is a cunning enemy, and one we ignore at our peril.
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