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And if we look at it from a selfish point of view, if we look at it from a short- sighted point of view, maybe some sectors would feel that this is actually a good thing. But as a responsible government we believe that this is undesirable. As I said earlier on, if we do it, even if we are to do it only once, then we are going against our own principle. Article 107 of the Basic Law aside, even if we were allowed to do so under the Basic Law, all international investors and all local investors would lose confidence in us because we are showing to those people that we do not abide by our principles and that would have dire consequences.
We are now projecting the future surplus basing on economic growth rate and if we are to trample on our own fiscal management policy then I am sure our economic performance will be affected. And if that happens would we be able to shoulder financially large infrastructural development projects? And also our recurrent spending will suffer. Even if we are to keep the present level of recurrent spending it would cause difficulties and so that would be quite undesirable. And that is why I believe we have to be very, very careful about this.
And also, in my Budget Speech I already mentioned that it is not that we are totally neglecting the CSSA and other services. That's not the case at all. We will keep improving upon them and I am sure the SARG will continue to make efforts to look after those who are vulnerable in our community.
Looking at our own reserves, after the transition we will review our reserves, we will review the size of it and we will think of ways to invest it and I am sure Mr Tung and my own team will be looking at this. I don't want to say anything further, I just wish to make an initial response to the views expressed so far on my Budget and I hope that the press will look deeper into the relevant philosophies and the theories.
Question 1 (in Chinese): Concerning the increase of tax allowances, would you be worried that the tax bands would be narrower? And also, would it affect the stability of the tax regime?
Mr Donald Tsang (in Chinese): As I said in my Budget Speech, although the tax bands have been adjusted and the tax allowances have been raised, however at present those who are paying taxes are economically very active and so they have a higher capability of increasing their income than the average person and so even if they leave the tax net for a year it is highly probable that next year they will join the tax net again. And so our present proposed adjustment to the tax bands and tax allowances would not affect the tax net or the tax base and we believe that this is already a conservative approach. Just now I am asked whether there will be dire consequences. I don't believe so.