Transcript of Governor's meet-the-press session
Following is the transcript of the Governor, the Rt Hon Christopher Patten's meet-the-press session after the Summit on Employment today (Tuesday):
Governor: I want to stress straightaway that we've had an extremely constructive meeting. People came to the meeting with different views and of course there was no unanimity. And there was one point about which there's quite a sharp disagreement or a difference in perception. But I think I can honestly say that everybody who made a contribution, was speaking not only with considerable sincerity, not only very constructively but avoiding simple political points, and trying to contribute to the development of policies which will help the workforce in Hong Kong and help to secure our jobs and our prosperity in Hong Kong. So I repeat though there were, of course, differences everybody was, I think, contributing in a very constructive and positive way. And I want to thank everybody who spoke, both the panellists and from the floor. There were many points on which there was agreement and many points that we want to develop. A number of arguments about retraining, about job placement, about our existing labour market policies and of course agreement as well on the importance of cracking down hard and more effectively on illegal employment.
The main focus of disagreement and it came out in some constructive exchanges is about the relationship, which in the importation of labour and the unemployment situation here in Hong Kong, on which to be fair, employers and employees disagree. Where I think we were moving towards agreement was on the importance involving everybody, and the management of whatever importation of labour into Hong Kong exists. We are committed when we next have, and when we've completed our interim review of the importation of labour scheme, to having a further meeting like this, that will be in the early autumn. And we are very open-minded in the administration about an idea which was put forward this afternoon from both sides. They are originally by Mr Henry Tang. The idea that we should establish a tripartite committee representing employers and employees to manage and review whatever importation of labour into Hong Kong takes place. But the first thing we have to do is to complete our review, to take an interim view and then to come back and discuss it with the employers' representatives and the employees' representatives who were discussing things with us today.
So while we'll obviously be wanting to spend summer following up a number of the ideas that we would put on the skills gap, on the information gap here in Hong Kong. We'll also be preparing for the next summit meeting like this, by which stage we would have completed the review of labour importation and I hope we'll be able to respond positively on the importance of involving both sides of industry in their managing or taking an overview of any importation of labour that exists in Hong Kong. All right? I am sure you'll want to talk to my colleagues on the platform who were putting different views but putting them in an extremely constructive way. If you want a couple of questions to me, otherwise 1 suggest to you
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