XN000022-1995-06-06 — Page 6

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Question: Sir, what measures can you take in the interim before the actual report comes out?

Governor: What we'll be doing in the interim is we've stopped any new quota under the labour importation scheme and we're increasing the measures that we've already put in place to deal with illegal employment. We are stepping up our employee retraining and in particular we are extending our job placement programme to the whole community. We want that to be far more proactive, not waiting for people to come to us, but going out into the community and trying to match those who don't have jobs with the 60,000 or so vacancies which we are told exist.

Question: It has been said that the unemployment problem Hong Kong will have to live with it for 12 to 18 months... Is that something that you have agreed?

Governor: No, I don't necessarily agree with that. I was listening to, that was a view put by one of our distinguished speakers this afternoon, but I was listening to the economist of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce this morning who was putting rather a different point of view. I think the truth of the matter is we don't know exactly what's going to happen to the figures. We are still confident about our growth targets and predictions in Hong Kong which should mean that there isn't too much slippage in the employment market. But obviously we'll keep the position under very close review. In the longer term, the important thing is for us to have aas competitive economy as possible and that means having as skilled and well-trained a workforce as possible. And those as everybody was agreeing today have got to be our principal medium and long-term objectives.

Question: In concrete terms, what exactly will be done to crackdown on the abuse of...

Governor: I'll let Peter Lai who I think is with us talk to you about that afterwards. But I suggest what you do now is ask some of my colleagues on the platform. The simple first answer is that we're doubling the number of people who are actually dealing with illegal employment.

Question: Governor, a lot of people say that if you don't stop the labour importation scheme immediately, you are just doing some gestures, or doing a show to... the unemployment situation. How do you react to that?

Governor: There are a lot of people upstairs who had the experience of employing large numbers of workers who take exactly the opposite point of view. It is where the argument lies. But I think there are plenty of other issues on which we agree.