XN000022-1995-10-12 — Page 33

Daily Information Bulletin 新聞公報 All

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Question (in Chinese): First of all, I would like to congratulate the Government for making progress and advancement in technology policy. That is definitely some improvement over the past ten years. But still, we are far behind many other places Information and we could be phased out eventually; there is such a danger. technology is one of the biggest markets in the world and Hong Kong has always taken the lead in this area. In the sixties and seventies we relied on our medium and small enterprises for our success. Now, I hope the Government could learn from other successful places. For example, there could be some tax incentives to help our small and medium sized enterprises, especially in the area of information technology development.

Now, it's like there is a three-pronged approach. One is the short term approach and with this assistance we could help to resolve the unemployment problem and in the long run it could help Hong Kong's long term development. I also heard you mention the Science Park. In fact I was one of the members consulted but unfortunately, many of our concerns are not spelt out. For the Science Park idea, it could be a flame that could help us, but at the same time it could burn us, so I hope the Government will be able to do more in this regard. Thank you.

Governor: On the Science Park, we have, as you suggest, been undertaking a feasibility study. There are, frankly, two sides to the argument. There are some people who say, yes, we should go ahead with one, there are others who say we would be better using the land for another factory development and that that's the more sensible way for using the resources available here in Hong Kong. But we are going to discuss the outcome of that study with the community, with experts like you and with the Legislative Council, and I hope we will come to the right conclusions.

On technology policy and tax incentives, I think the most important tax incentive that we have here in Hong Kong is to keep taxes low. People very often say to me: why don't you have tax holidays like some other people have? And I reply to that: because when they stop having their tax holidays elsewhere they fetch up paying tax rates which are two or three times the size of those in Hong Kong. I think the important thing for us to do is to keep taxes down for everybody. Now, I see, for example, when presenting the Hong Kong Awards for Industry, lots of examples of small hi-tech firms, or firms which were often small three or four years ago and are now getting medium-sized or even quite big, here in Hong Kong, and they are invariably the result of the creative genius, the entrepreneurial skill, of some of our own technology scientific graduates. That's why I am delighted that we are now putting a lot more money into research in our universities and that is why I am pleased we have been able to spend the best part of 400 millions in the last couple of years for research projects in manufacturing technology. Those are the sort of things that should actually help us to keep a good, high value added manufacturing base here in Hong Kong, relating entrepreneurial activity to our excellent tertiary education sector.

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