1
13
Chief Secretary: I wasn't at the meeting. I don't know why it was this confusion. Let me just reassure you that the Bill has not been shelved and as I said before, we are still working on the very complex piece of legislation.
Question: Does it mean that you will consult China?
Chief Secretary: It depends on what the final draft looks like. If it concerns other parties, including of course China, where there is a legitimate interest to be involved, then of course we will be, as usual, consulting all the parties concerned.
End/Friday, May 26, 1995
Bank of China as chairman of HK Association of Banks
The Government has proposed to amend existing legislation to enable the Bank of China (BOC) to rotate as Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Committee of the Hong Kong Association of Banks (HKAB), along with The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited (HSBC) and Standard Chartered Bank (SCB).
Details of the proposal are contained in the Hong Kong Association of Banks (Amendment) Bill 1995 which was published in the Gazette today (Friday).
The spokesman said the proposal to enable the BOC to alternate as Chairman/Vice-Chairman of the Committee was made in response to a request from HKAB following a recent resolution by the Committee of HKAB.
"This is a logical step forward reflecting BOC's increasingly important role in the banking sector," he said.
The BOC Group is the second largest banking group in Hong Kong. The bank is one of the three continuing members of the Committee and became the third note- issuing bank in 1994.
The existing term of two years for the Chairman would be reduced to one year. A two-year term was considered too long in view of the increasing commitments placed on the Chairman bank. Furthermore, retaining the current two-year tenure would mean that each continuing member would have to wait for four years before serving as the Chairman.