- 9

What we have been doing with all new immigrants from China is first of all giving them a booklet which explains to them how to try to get things done in Hong Kong: how you get your children educated, how you set about applying for the waiting-list for housing and how you go to the doctor if you are feeling ill. It gives them all that sort of practical information and that we try to give to people as soon as they arrive.

We have also been providing remedial help in schools for those for example with language difficulties who don't have good Cantonese or English, so that we can make it easier for them to integrate into our schooling system. And we are providing extra resources elsewhere for education because it is obviously one of the bigger problems.

I very much hope that by developing our programmes in that way we can give new immigrants from China the opportunity of contributing as fully and constructively to our community as previous immigrants from China have done. We must learn from some of the mistakes that perhaps we learnt in the past but we will certainly be developing our programmes as I have described and hope that we can deal with all those who have got the right to come and live in Hong Kong as rapidly as possible, without of course allowing people to jump queues in a way which would be regarded as unfair by people who have been waiting for a social service in Hong Kong for some time.

Question (in Chinese): (on estate management and election)

Governor: Well, as you've had all those previous opportunities, perhaps we could stop there, all right. Because you've asked quite a long question.

Question (in Chinese): I still have a few more things to say. Because about the Diaoyu Islands dispute.

Governor: One more, but we have an agreement that we we'd all have short questions.

Question (in Chinese): Yes, it would be the final question. Now Diaoyu Tai is actually the state guest house for China, I think this is a shame. For those who stay at the Diaoyu Tai guest house I think that they should feel that they are in occupied territory, they should feel that they have been living in occupied territory, that they have been raped by Japan. Now finally I would like to pay tribute to Mr David Chan, I would also wish you good health and thank you God.

Governor: Well, you seem to get quite a lot in that question and I hope that none of it was libellous.

Share This Page