XN000022-1995-10-13 — Page 27

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Paradoxes make Hong Kong tick: Chief Secretary

There are three uniquely Hong Kong paradoxes which need to be grasped if people are to understand what makes the territory tick so successfully, the Chief secretary, Mrs Anson Chan, said today (Friday).

Addressing a luncehon of the Harvard Business School Association, Mrs Chan said: "The first is that Hong Kong promotes a free enterprise culture, but also places a very high priority on the quality of its public services.

"Second, Hong Kong is totally committed to a free-market economy, but also provides a sophisticated regulatory regime for it to go on prospering.

"Third, Hong Kong is administrated by an executive-led government which does not have its own party, or even a single vote, in the Legislature."

Mrs Chan said that the Governor in his Policy Address delivered on Wednesday (October 11) had reminded Legislative Councillors that despite concerns about unemployment and inflation, Hong Kong's economy was in fact in very good shape.

"Over the past three years, our GDP has increased by 18 per cent in real terms and is on track for a steady and substantial five per cent growth this year," she said.

"Hong Kong has gone on prospering and the Government has gone on working to improve the public services which the community values so highly."

Citing statistics, Mrs Chan said during the past three years, the housing programme had delivered 80,000 new homes, the education sector had employed 2,000 more teachers and cut class sizes in secondary schools to 20 and to 24 in primary schools and an additional 2,700 beds had been provided in public hospitals.

"In Hong Kong, we believe that there should be no contradiction between a commitment to enterprise and to markets on the one hand and a commitment to improving public services on the other," she said.

"The key to understanding this essential fact of Hong Kong political and economic life is what the Governor has called the 'living within our means' rule of public expenditure control."

The Government would also continue to make sure that as it amended or modernised business legislation, it did not erect new barriers to business.