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FS (in Cantonese): I wouldn't say those are constraints, rather our society is progressing. Now every year we have done our budget in a certain way but now our society has progressed to a stage that we need some new strategies, new attitude and a pragmatic attitude in the preparation of the Budget. So that's the direction we are taking now. Of course, community aspirations are now higher, LegCo aspirations are also higher and also because of the change of sovereignty, there are now new political dimensions. But to me they are really secondary. What is important is how we would prepare the best Budget that would meet the needs of Hong Kong well into the next century. Especially we need to keep our competitiveness in the trade sector and so on, we need to keep our leadership position. So that's how we draw up our Budget. Of course we could listen to the views of different sectors and when there are difficulties, of course we must try to overcome them.
P
Whether we are under a lot of constraints of course, we are. Everything we do, even you, you have a harder time trying to make a living, and for us we have a harder time making a living, LegCo Members have a harder time making a living. But it only means that society is progressing so it is nothing we need to be concerned about.
Question (? organisation) (in Cantonese): I don't think you have answered a part of my question. Do you think there is a good chance of the Budget being approved?
FS (in Cantonese): Now since the history of Hong Kong we have never had the case of a Budget not being approved. Now we have put in great effort in that regard and of course this is not unilateral effort. As I said from the outset of my speech this is not just my personal view. We have taken into account views of the community and views of LegCo Members, as far as possible.
Now there is some initial response from LegCo Members. Just now I watched on TV, press reports, that 70% of their wishes have been taken into account so I find that gratifying and you can already gauge what their voting would be like.
Question (Reuters): I'm just curious as to the Policy Reviews that you're asking the different departments to go through. What are you looking for, what are you expecting to come from that and how long do you expect that to take?
FS: Very good question. Maybe I'll ask the proposed Chairman of that Committee, the Secretary for the Treasury.
S for Tsy: We've only just started work on it. In fact, the work will be staged and the very first phase would be the selection of some services and some departments and some projects.