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ECR6 also made important recommendations on Putonghua education, including a provision of $10 million annually in recurrent expenses to enable the introduction of a new Putonghua curriculum in September 1998, covering all levels from Primary One to Secondary Five in schools.

Mr Tsang also said Hong Kong must go on investing in education and in skills training and the Government and the private sector must work together.

Productivity per manufacturing worker has increased by 227 per cent over the last decade, according to Mr Tsang,

The Government was reviewing the New Technology Training Scheme under which employers could obtain matching grants for training their employees in new technology in local or overseas institutions.

A number of proposals were being considered, including raising the level of grants and widening the eligibility for application.

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The object of this was to allow more people to receive training and to widen the and level of skills to be covered by the Scheme, Mr Tsang said.

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Support for manufacturing sector underlined

Hong Kong must support its manufacturing sector in its drive to compete in the high-value added and high-technology market of the next century, the Financial Secretary, Mr Donald Tsang, said.

"Our manufacturers have already relocated to Southern China the lower-skilled,, lower value-added production operations.

"The priority for manufacturing in the future must be to move further up- market," Mr Tsang said.

Recognising this, Mr Tsang said, manufacturers were already devoting more attention to applied research and development, product design, prototypes, quality control and the sourcing of materials and components.