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Question: Are you confident that legislative councillors will support this new fund?
CS: The purpose of this motion debate is precisely to ascertain whether there is majority support. I would simply urge legislative councillors to give this debate their serious consideration because we do need a clear indication from members. If they feel there is a need to address the financial needs of old people on retirement, then this is one alternative. We earlier proposed an OPS which, unfortunately and very disappointingly for those of us within the Administration, who have given this a lot of thought, did not receive majority support. In the absence of that support, we have to consider whether there are other alternative schemes that members might feel more able to support. So I hope they will give this debate their very serious consideration and indicate in unequivocal terms whether they wish the Government to proceed or don't wish the Government to proceed. But I don't think sitting on the fence is an option.
End/Tuesday, February 21, 1995
ACE port plan approval welcomed
The Port Development Board has welcomed environmental approval of the first stage of Lantau Port.
The Advisory Council on the Environment (ACE), on Monday, endorsed plans for Container Terminals 10 and 11 after studying the environmental impact assessment (EIA) on the project.
The chairman of the board, Mr John Gray, said ACE's endorsement of the EIA was good news for Hong Kong's economy.
He said great importance had been placed on possible effects on the environment when Container Terminals 10 and 11 were being planned.
"The EIA just endorsed by ACE shows that these effects are all well within accepted government planning guidelines."
He added: "I hope that we can now get on with bringing these two terminals into operation as soon as possible. They are urgently needed to cope with the continuing demand for increased container throughput.