Mr Donald Tsang (in Chinese): Well, you more or less have answered your own question. I think your main point is this. That is whether our threshold of $4 million is useful. Actually, we want to encourage people to purchase homes. We want to reduce stamp duty and we think that for the small and medium priced flats that will be useful, especially for HOS flats and the small flats. I think we can help people ease their burden and it is good if they can purchase homes. It is very simple, that is our objective.
Question 5: Mr Tsang, as Hong Kong's $32 billion dollar man, are you under any sort of pressure? On the radio this morning there were a lot of calls that were expressing outrage and even shame that there was this much money and some of the people on the fringes of society weren't being addressed. Are you under any pressure and what is your reaction to this sort of bubbling outrage, even from some supporters of the Budget? The Liberal Party, for example, yesterday, while they supported the Budget demanded that Mr Tung take some action for people on the fringes. Can you react to that?
Mr Donald Tsang: Well it is, I think, part of the job to be under pressure as Financial Secretary in Hong Kong. But in fact I quite enjoyed today's exchange on the radio programme, I didn't hear any outrage, nor did I think I was told to be ashamed of myself this morning. I hope we were listening to the same programme.
I have explained already in the Budget that the coming year's surplus is rather exceptional. I am sure Mr Kwong is more eloquent than me in explaining this. It is rather exceptional in that we are changing accounting arrangements for our land sale receipts this year and we credited to Hong Kong General Revenue the entire land sale receipts and premium payments because we no longer shared it out with the Land Fund. And at the same time we are also in receipt of the Land Fund. So all these things come into play. I do not feel ashamed of ourselves and I have said that I am very proud that we have been acting in a conservative manner at this critical time and we have to make sure that the SAR Government at its time of birth will be in a very strong and robust financial position. I don't know whether Mr Kwong has anything to add to that.
Mr KC Kwong: Not really.
Question 6 (in Chinese): Mr Tsang, is it that there will be 400 civil service units to be taken out to the market? Now if these are sold what money will you get and won't that stimulate the speculation of large flats?
Mr Donald Tsang (in Chinese): We are not trying to encash the revenue in this regard, we have enough finances. We just want to add to the supply. Now if you add to the supply, according to economic theory the prices will stabilise. We don't believe that getting more supply will stimulate speculation. If we have more supply speculation can be dampened.
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