XN000022-1995-10-12 — Page 29

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Of course, there are some communities which take a very tough attitude to this. You go into a shop or a store in Germany and if goods are too comprehensively packaged, if there is too much round them, people will very often tear the pieces off and give them back to the sales assistant because they don't think it's environmentally friendly but we haven't yet got to that in Hong Kong. I hope we can depend on the good sense of manufacturers and the good sense of retailers, who, I think, recognise like everybody else, that Hong Kong is becoming more environmentally conscious. And quite right too. A lot of green groups with a lot of lobbying clout and representing a real, I think, change of mood in the community.

Question (in Chinese): I have two questions and two ideas. Firstly, I would like to ask you this, Mr Governor, about industrial development in Hong Kong. Where is the direction - about the competitiveness, where does it lie?

Presenter: I think the Governor is pondering how to answer your question.

Governor: No, I was actually wondering whether Mr Wong had finished, because he said he had two questions and two ideas and I was wondering whether that was the whole lot in one.

I'll be very brief. I certainly don't think that the Government should try to steer industrial development. It never has in the past and if it started to try to do that, I guess it would make the same sort of mistakes that governments make elsewhere. What we have got to do is to ensure that our industry, whether manufacturing or service, works within the right infrastructure of low taxes, that they've got good infrastructure, that they've got lots of people with skills to come into their workforce. That is what we have got to go on doing. But I certainly don't think that I should go around trying to run industry because, frankly, I couldn't, and people don't go into the civil service or into public administration to run firms.

On competitiveness, we're still doing pretty well. We've gone up the league table, according to the World Economic Forum, but it stands to reason that you can't rest on your laurels, you've got to go on working harder to remain competitive. And I guess the most serious threat to competitiveness in Hong Kong is costs; we've got to make sure our costs stay down.

Presenter (in Chinese): Mr Wong, are you satisfied with the reply?

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