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Transcript of the media session by the Governor
The following is the transcript of the media session by the Governor, the Rt Hon Christopher Patten, at the Airport on his return from London this (Sunday) afternoon:
Governor: Good afternoon, nice to be back in Hong Kong. I've had a good and useful visit to the United Kingdom. I had valuable discussions with the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister and two meetings with the Governor of the Bank of England, mostly to discuss the strength of the Hong Kong economy and the guarantees of Hong Kong's autonomy in fiscal, economic and trading matters after 1997 and as you know, I made a number of speeches and had meetings with officials. There was one issue which caused a good deal of interest and which I know has been debated over the last few days in Hong Kong. And that was the whole question of right of abode which has been given a particular point in view of the decisions taken by the United Kingdom government about visa-free access for SAR passport holders. We've been studying both here and in London Director Lu's speech on the issue with considerable interest. I am bound to say we remain slightly puzzled as to why it's that this issue can't simply be resolved by a simple declaration of intent, but we obviously want to get into discussions with Chinese officials as soon as possible about what exactly they're proposing, because there are clearly quite a lot of questions which are unanswered. There are a lot of difficulties of implementation which I think we foresee, and many of the questions which are going to be asked by Hong Kong families including those who aren't at present in Hong Kong, are not questions that we can at present answer. So the sooner we can get into detailed discussions with Chinese officials the better and that frankly has been our position since last January when Mr Qian Qichen gave his undertaking to the British Foreign Secretary Malcom Rifkind during their meeting in Peking. I'd like to add my pleasure at the announcement we've heard from the courts in the Philippines about the imminent release of Mr Au and Mr Wong. I've asked the British Embassy in the Philippines to establish exactly when they are going to leave prison and I'll be writing urgently to President Ramos tomorrow. thanking him for the decision taken by the courts but just ask him for confirmation that it will be implemented as rapidly as possible, because I know that everybody will want to see Mr Au and Mr Wong home in Hong Kong as soon as we can get them here. Many of us have been involved in the effort to get them back to Hong Kong. And I am delighted that if it's going to end this satisfactory as now seems to be the case. Any questions?
Question: How do you work on the demonstration conflicts between the Police and demonstrators outside NCNA and the Grand Hyatt Hotel today?