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Mr President, today we have reached a mile-stone in our long road towards establishing a retirement system for Hong Kong. The result of the vote on the motion as I put before this Council will determine whether we move down the road towards the goal of a mandatory privately managed retirement system, or to stop the journey right here. If we get clear support from this Council on our proposal, as embodied in my original motion as not amended, we will proceed with appointing a consultant to look at the details and come back to this Council as soon as possible on details. We will also start drafting legislation and come back to this Council with a primary legislation. The time-frame we try to get an initial report from the consultants by the end of April and to come to this Council with a primary law before the end of this session if Council endorses my motion this afternoon. This is our timetable, we cannot lose any more time. Every day counts, every week counts in these preparations, is a tall order for the Government is prepared to take up this challenge and respond to Members' concern and the community's concern on this matter. And we hope Members can approve the motion unamended and make sure we have these mandate from Council to proceed as I recommended.

Thank you.

End/Wednesday, March 8, 1995

SHW speaks on retirement protection

Following is the speech by the Secretary for Health and Welfare, Mrs Katherine Fok, on the amendment moved by the Hon Jimmy McGregor, to the motion moved by the Secretary for Education and Manpower, Mr Michael Leung, on "Retirement Protection" in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):

Mr President.

The decision of my colleague, the Secretary for Education and Manpower to confine the scope of his motion to retirement protection alone was a carefully considered one. The Administration wishes this Council to have the opportunity to express its view on this important issue without being distracted into a debate about the appropriate level of social security payments and allowances for the elderly. Indeed, the Council will have the opportunity to express its views on the latter subject when it discusses the motion to be moved by Dr Yeung Sum later today.

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