XN000022-1995-11-09 — Page 6

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At the same time as we consider those statistics, we need to look at some of the longer trends as well. They are trends which will require us to take long term measures directed towards our competitiveness and the flexibility of our own labour market.'

Today, my colleagues at this table will report on the action that we have taken on the package of measures that I announced at our last meeting in June, the measures that we have taken on illegal employment, on the abuse of existing labour importation schemes and there has been some abuse; on job matching, on training and retraining. and the proposals that we have put forward on labour importation itself.

I hope that we can focus, today, on positive proposals that will make our labour market fairer - I repeat, fairer - and more efficient, for local employees and for local employers in both the medium and the long term. I hope that we won't focus, to the exclusion of all else, on the importation of labour. There are a couple of things that I would like to say about that.

Last year our labour force grew by nearly 100,000. Less than five per cent of that figure was made up of workers who came in under both the General Labour Importation Scheme and the Scheme for the Airport Core Projects. The number of workers who have entered Hong Kong since 1992 under the General Importation of Labour Scheme - and that figure is about 6,000 is less than half the figure that came in under the scheme before 1992. So even though I think we should all concede that this issue is important, it isn't the whole answer, it isn't the key to all our problems. And if we were to go outside and say, well, we have done something about labour importation so everything is going to be alright, we would be kidding people.

Nevertheless, we must address the question of labour importation. It does worry the community, which wants to see a fair deal for local workers without making management's job impossible. I believe our new proposals strike a reasonable balance. I don't think you can simply ignore unemployment figures in discussing labour importation, nor do I think anyone seriously suggests that there should be no importation of any labour at all. We will go on talking after today to try to get as much consensus as possible on the way forward on this issue. We genuinely want to meet employees' and unions' worries, and match employers' reasonable expectations. So I hope we won't get too bogged down on this question, I hope we can look for agreement and think positively.