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During the past 10 months I think we have made good progress on measures first of all to help local workers find jobs by expanding our job matching and placement services. Second, to protect the employment interests of local workers by tackling illegal employment - as you know, we have put much more effort into that and of course increased the fines. And thirdly, to deal with a genuine manpower shortage facing employers by introducing the Supplementary Labour Scheme which I imagine will once again be the subject of some discussion and occasional disagreement during the course of this afternoon if what I heard on the radio this morning was anything to go by.
But there is no room for complacency. We still need to redress the mismatch and to help the unemployed and displaced workers to find jobs. We will therefore continue with these efforts with vigour and will endeavour to improve their effectiveness. Both the Secretary for Education and Manpower and the Secretary for Security will expand on these areas in their presentations a little later.
On top of these measures we are planning to take things forward, to chart the way ahead, in respect of employment, vocational education and retraining basing on the results of the consultancy studies we have recently undertaken on vocational education, on employees retraining and on age discrimination in employment. And Joseph will later explain to you in detail our latest thinking on all these aspects of the labour market.
On measures to facilitate economic development much has been done to sustain and promote the development of the services sector, and the Financial Secretary is going to speak on this in a moment.
The success of these employment related measures so far shows how effective it can be if both employers and employees do work together for the common good of the community. To map the way forward I certainly have to count on you all again for your continued co-operation.
What I would now like to do is to invite my colleagues from the Administration to report on the progress we have made since November last year. Then I would like to ask the panellists representing both the employers and the employees to set out their views. And then we will have a general discussion inviting you to comment from the floor - and there will be no discrimination against those who wear ties or fail to wear ties, I can assure you of that.
Can I first of all ask you, Donald, if you could begin the discussion.
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