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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
continuity and major incentives. I hope that the Urban Council can take up the role to develop intermediate training.
Secondly, to review allocation of resources. Allocation of resources for sports development should be reviewed from three aspects. The first one is the planning of facilities. We have a lot of facilities, but we have to determine whether to concentrate on recreation or sports development. Can we offer more venues with more spectator seats and better oriented for competitions so that NSAs can stage more events there? Can we provide some facilities to promote new popular sports? Can we offer specialised facilities so as to pool resources together for training? For example, we have a table-tennis centre and a squash centre. Is it possible for us to provide specialised sports centres and stadiums for NSAs to station and actively promote training? The planning of facilities is the first point.
The second point is financial assistance. The Council has been assisting NSAs all along. However, as pointed out in the discussion last night, we need to allocate resources more equally. It will be a challenging task for us, and it is a task we must face up to. How should we set the criteria for assistance? How should we strike the balance between new sports items and those we have been promoting for many years? Should we perhaps give more chances to new items? Are we going to increase allocations for items under active promotion so that regional sports associations may stage more activity-based and non-activity-based events?
The third point is related to logistics support which I find very important. If logistics support is good, resources will increase. Logistics support includes provision of venue. In fact, it is a basic need for the grass roots to have district sports associations in residence. Such associations in various areas can step up promotion at the district level is the best and the most direct way to do so. If we can devise a relatively concessionary rental policy for sports associations to hire our facilities, they will have more resources left to offer more training opportunities. Of course, there is a need to strike a balance between the demand of the public and that of the sports associations for our facilities. I believe the Working Group on drafting the Recreation Select Committee's Five-Year Plan will consider this in great detail.
Last night, a lot of questions were raised including what roles should sports associations and the Urban Council assume. One speaker expressed the view last night that the Council should be the bridge between sports associations and the public. There is no conflict between sports-for-all and sports for excellence. Likewise, there is no conflict between leisure activities and sports development. The most important thing is for us to develop sports from the elementary level up the pyramid without a break.
Mr. Chairman, I believe we all want our athletes to have the chance to participate in competitions outside and win medals overseas. We support and promote sports-for-all. But I think we must strive for excellence too. We hope
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