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Transcript of the Governor's media session
Following is the transcript of the Governor, the Rt Hon Christopher Patten's media session at the airport before leaving for the Philippines this (Sunday) afternoon:
Governor: Good afternoon. At the invitation of the President, I'm making the first ever official visit to the Philippines by a Governor of Hong Kong. It underlines our strong trading and economic relationship. Our trade with the Philippines has been growing steadily at a rate of about 25 per cent a year. We are the second largest investor in the Philippines. And of course there are many Filipinos working here in Hong Kong contributing to our economic success story, over 140,000 Filipinos altogether, of whom about 129,000 are domestic helpers. So it is a strong economic relationship. I'll be talking about that and about our role together in APEC with the President, with parliamentary leaders, with business leaders. And I'm also visiting Subic Bay where there are many Hong Kong investors in what is in effect an enterprise zone or free port. I'll also be seeing Cardinal Sin tomorrow morning and making a number of speeches. In addition to discussions about the economy and trading matters, I'll also be raising one or two other issues with President. For example, there is a good deal of concern in the community which has been expressed by the Legislative Council about the length of time that two of our citizens have been waiting for the hearing of an appeal into their sentence four years ago. None of us and no members of the Legislative Council and certainly not the administration wishes to interfere in the independent judicial process in the Philippines, but we do very much hope that the appeal itself can be expedited, can be heard as soon as possible, because Mr Au and Mr Wong have been waiting a very long time for that to happen. But it is important to stress I think the positive economic and trade relationship we have with the Philippines which has course had a very successful transition to democracy over the last few years and that's something I think everybody in the region greatly applauds.
Question: (on domestic helpers)