+
17 -
Governor: Yes, certainly. We do need to ensure that retraining deals adequately with the needs of an economy which is now so heavily service based. It doesn't mean that manufacturing isn't important. I suppose about 14% of our workforce is still working in manufacturing. But given the importance of services to the economy, we have to make sure that retraining reflects that. And if I may say so, in reviewing the Labour Importation Scheme we have to consider what is happening in both manufacturing employment and service employment. So I hope we can be as positive and sensible as the Honourable Member has suggested.
End/Thursday, June 1, 1995
Governor's media session on proposals to beat drug
The following is a transcript of the Governor, the Rt Hon Christopher Patten's media session after receiving a report on proposals to beat drugs today (Thursday):
Governor: Good afternoon. As you know, at the Drug Summit that I hold in March, we set out details of our Thirty Million Programme for beating drugs. We set out our ideas in a number of areas: law enforcement, preventive education, treatment and rehabilitation and research. But we didn't just set out our own ideas, we asked for other people's and the participants at the Summit gave us over 90 ideas of their own for continuing the campaign more comprehensively against drug abuse in Hong Kong.
I said at the time that I would ask the Chairman of ACAN and the Commissioner for Narcoties to look at those proposals as a matter of urgency and report back to me within three months, and I am delighted to say that they have done that in rather more rapid time than we had expected. We've got their report today and they will be publishing it and letting you have copies, letting everyone involved in the Campaign Against Drug Abuse have copies, and I think they are giving a briefing in the Commissioner's office for those of you who wish to attend later on this afternoon.
They set out, endorsed by ACAN, their views on how we can pick up some of the ideas that were put at the Summit. Some of them are ideas for Government, some of them are ideas for Government and Voluntary Agencies, some of them are ideas for Voluntary Agencies themselves, but they are another indication of the fact that all of us have a contribution we can make to this campaign.