XN000022-1995-04-13 — Page 3

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FS's transcript

Following is the transcript of the Financial Secretary, Sir Hamish Macleod, at a media session on his return at Lok Ma Chau today (Thursday):

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We have had a very good visit over here, really, catching up on developments and infrastructure: the port, the airport, of course the stock exchange we had a particular interest in that; and also, actually, now just discussing the question of border crossing procedures. There is a clear awareness on the Chinese side as well as our side that things need to be speeded up. Really, the pressure of numbers is just growing all the time and they, apparently, have a number of ideas on how to speed the whole system up - computerisation and so on, so I think that is encouraging.

The other thing that struck me, not having been to this area for four years, the pace of building is still going on at a tremendous speed, whether you are talking about actual residential, commercial or, of course, highways; not just the famous super highway but a number of other new road links, either under construction or being planned.

So it is useful to have these exchanges, really, just to learn from each other what is going on or what is planned, what problems are foreseen.

The airport, too, I must say is a success story in the sense that the volume of passengers is already up to about, I think, one-fifth the size of Kai Tak, which is a pretty fast expansion in a relatively short period. So, I think very useful for us and I hope very useful for the Shenzhen officials that we met.

Any questions?

Question: Talking about the problems foreseen(inaudible)...?

FS: We were not really mainly talking about problems, although I think the one which clearly was in their minds as well as ours was the one I mentioned earlier, on speeding up border crossing. I think there are pressures on all of us from the business community, from tourists, from lorry-drivers and all the rest of it, to try and find some solutions to this problem. I am told at the moment, for instance, at this crossing, coming across from the other side, a lorry probably has to take about an hour it depends what time of day of course. That is a very long time and has an economic cost for Shenzhen and for Hong Kong. So there is a clear awareness that something has to be done on that.

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Question: We've heard some talk recently about possibly someone taking money to allow people through foot passengers, train passengers. Was there any talk mentioned about that, whether they were ...?