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Transcript of FS's media session
Following is the transcript of a media session given by the Financial Secretary, Sir Hamish Macleod, after unveiling the model of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre Extension today (Wednesday):
Good Morning. It gives me a very good feeling to see the progress being made on the extension. You can see here on the site how huge it is going to be. But I must congratulate the architect; he has managed, although it is a huge building, to make it also attractive. So I do honestly believe it is going to be a tourist attraction just like the Sydney Opera House. It is really an impressive building. The capacity, as I said, is more than double the existing building, so it is an enormous step forward in our place in the convention centre and exhibition centre world.
Question and Answer Session:
Question: Sir Hamish, could you comment on recent statements coming out from Hang Seng Bank which is one of the territory's two largest banks, that they may raise the cost of loans and some of their services if deregulation of interest rates on time deposits should proceed at full speed. Do you see this as a threat to the government's proposal or rather Hong Kong Consumer Council's proposal?
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FS: No, I mean I don't see it as a threat. We do, of course, consult the banks before we make a decision on the next step on deregulation. We haven't made that decision - we have not made that decision yet and we will be discussing it with the banks. Of course we will be discussing it not in public, so we will get their views anyway; we will get the views of the other banks, and we will take those very seriously because we are not in the business of making the environment too difficult for banks. On the other hand, we are trying to balance the interests of the consumer. So I guess we will have a decision probably some time in September but we have not made up our minds yet.
Question: Seems the US market has gone down, remained stable for quite a long time, the bankers in Beijing are saying that it might be a good time to increase the mortgage by five per cent, so will the Government review the (inaudible)?
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FS: We will certainly keep it under review, we are not saying that it will never change. But what we are saying at the moment is, we are not yet convinced there is a case for a bit of the heat changing it. We very much welcome the fact that property prices has gone out of property prices, particularly domestic. I think, if you remember back last year, there was a lot of pressure for that to happen. It should, I hope, over the coming months begin to feed into the inflation figures; it should begin to have a somewhat helpful impact on inflation figures, so that will be helpful. But at the moment, I am quite content with the way things are in relation to property prices and in relation to mortgages.