XN000022-1996-03-22 — Page 6

Consensus on Government's budgetary principles

The Financial Secretary, Mr Donald Tsang, said today (Friday) that there was a clear consensus in the community that the Government should adhere firmly to the guiding principle of living within our means.

Speaking at the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Mr Tsang said the Hong Kong community had already shown by its response to this year's budget that it supported the set of budgetary principles as the basis of next year's budget as what the Government was now doing "has been effectively enshrined in the Basic Law as the guidelines for the preparation of future budgets".

He said making the budget readily accessible and at every stage professionally and intellectually sound were the two key objectives in preparing for the 1996 Budget.

"Over the years we have tried to present the budget in a way not just economists could readily follow its contents, people from all walks of life also now understand the key budget proposals without difficulty.

"This year we took our public accountability even further," he said.

"This year for the first time all the budget material including the Draft Estimates and its presentation are fully bilingual. There was also the greater use of Chinese."

Mr Tsang said the Government had decided to keep the Budget on the straight and narrow, notwithstanding the superficially attractive ideas floated a few months ago for the 1996 Budget.

"We decided to abide by our fundamental budgetary guidelines and discarded all of populist ideas which were being floated for the 1996 Budget.

The populist ideas Mr Tsang was referring to included earlier suggestions that the Government should "dip into the reserves" to kick-start the economy.

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Mr Tsang dismissed these by noting that any transitory popularity gained from such suggestions was an illusion....."and the price the real price to be paid for it is lasting damage to Hong Kong's reputation for prudent management of its public finances".