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Question: Mr Governor, the time is 1998 and the new Mayor of Hong Kong is about to serve his 10 year term and he is drawing up his long range 10 year plan, and this time he comes to (you for) your advice. What would you advise him in terms of the most critical issues that he should deal with? And what do you think is a realistic target that he should set for himself in 10 years' time that he can claim a successful term?
Governor: Wow! Now look, if I answer your question as honestly as possible, I hope that I won't have any statement from a distinguished member of the NCNA tomorrow saying that I've overstepped the mark and that I've infringed on Chinese sovereignty and that I've behaved like a serpent again.
I'll obviously have opportunities of talking to my successor, the Chief Executive designate of the SAR, and sharing my own perceptions, for what they are worth, about Hong Kong's problems, with the Chief Executive designate. I think we've touched on some of the main problems for my successor during the course of this discussion.
First of all, I think in the next few years Hong Kong is going to have to take some fairly radical decisions about housing. We have over the years, quite properly, committed very substantial resources to housing. I think the Government, the Housing Authority, the community, is going to have to think quite hard about whether those resources are being allocated in the way most likely to help those in the greatest need. And I think we're also going to have to consider whether we're being imaginative enough in the way that we help those who want to become home owners themselves. We've got a very good Chairman of the Housing Authority who I'm sure is even more aware than I am of the substantial nature of the housing tasks ahead. But I think housing is inevitably going to be one of the priorities of my successor.
Secondly, given the importance of Hong Kong in relation to the opening up of the whole of southern China, I'm sure that a second economic priority is going to be the continuing development of infrastructure links with the rest of China, as it will be then. And I think the importance of the railway, not least in getting freight off the road on to railways from our port, is going to be vital as well. We've got a port which is still increasing in capacity at about the same rate as the total of Seattle or Oakland or Felixstowe, every year. It's an astonishing figure. And as China continues to grow and expand, that isn't going to become any less of an issue. So the real problems of improving North-South infrastructure and infrastructure both to the North-West and North-East is going to be a heavy priority as well.