3.
Question: Some legislators criticised that the high unemployment rate is due to the importation of foreign labour. What will the Government do to curb the increasing of the rate? Will the Government stop to import foreign labour?
Governor: We have a good debate about that in the Legislative Council a few weeks ago. During that debate we made clear first of all that we intended to review the general labour importation scheme and secondly that for the time being there'll be no new quota allocated. I just want to make a couple of obvious points about the importation scheme which is not to see that we don't recognise that this is an issue which we want to discuss with representatives of the work force. The first point I'll make is that the number actually coming in under the general importation scheme is of course a great deal lower than the number unemployed. It's about a third the number of unemployed. And, it is a great deal lower than the number of job vacancies in the community which is just below the number of unemployed. Secondly, under the importation scheme, we do have provision to ensure that people aren't coming to jobs which could be taken by locals. Now, one of the points I want to discuss with union representatives is their concern which they articulated, which some of our Legislative Councillors articulated, that there is occasionally abuse of the scheme and that sometimes it is used in ways which weren't intended. So, that's one of the reasons why we are reviewing it. And, I hope that we can be entirely open about ways in which the scheme can be improved if that's necessary.
Question: Governor, many Hong Kong people would like to see Anson Chan change her diary to facilitate a meeting with Director Lu Ping. Why is this impossible to do?
Governor: I think many people in Hong Kong, indeed the majority of people in Hong Kong don't want to see this week entirely dominated by discussion about why it is Director Lu during his week with us and during the 20-odd meals that he is eating in Hong Kong, isn't able to see the Governor or the Chief Secretary. I don't want to say any more about that. I think that is an issue which we should try to put behind us and look to the future. The Chief Secretary has made a statement this morning, looking to the future she said and there's a point that I share with her, that we both hope that now that she's been invited to meet Director Lu in China and I think that is a welcome advance, he will be able to suggest some dates which she would find available and convenient. And she's pointed out she would welcome that, for example, during the whole of July which has even more than one week in it. So I hope that proves possible and I think that to repeat myself, everybody in Hong Kong would very much welcome it if we could sort out a date during the course of this week, bearing in mind that it's said that Director Lu's diary seems to be so full. But that's all I think I want to say on the subject, I want us to get with the job of getting on top of our problems, resolving our difficulties, and I hope we can do that in co-operation with Chinese officials. I think it is a pity that opportunities have been lost this week.