XN000022-1996-09-12 — Page 5

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Question: Governor, my question is not about employment, but recently the Hong Kong people held a demonstration against ... strong protest the occupation of Japan of the islands. So what is your opinion about this?

Governor: It is of course a foreign policy issue and therefore not one on which it is really appropriate for me to comment. But of course I recognise the strength of feelings locally. I hope those feelings will continue to be expressed in an orderly and restrained and dignified fashion. And like everybody else, I hope that that dispute and others in the region can be solved peacefully as soon as possible.

Question: But some of them have been looking for boats to the island to demolish the Japanese lighthouse. Do you think it is a rational decision as there may be dangers?

Governor: I very much hope that the issue can be solved peacefully and through discussion.

Question: Mr Patten, I wonder according to a survey the real wages of the employees have been ... So do you think really there is a real improvement and what will the Government do to lift the living standard of the employees?

Governor: A lot of the employees' representatives today were claiming that there had been some reduction, certainly in comparison with inflation, in real wages. I think over the years real wages have been increasing as Hong Kong's economy has grown. Certainly the latest figures, I think, on wages suggest that there has been a real increase. The most important thing the Government can do is to abate inflation, as we have been doing. It is now about half the level it was at the year before I arrived as Governor in Hong Kong. I think that it is important as well for Government to ensure that employees and businesses on their profits pay as low taxes as possible.

What is I think always difficult for employees to understand is why governments in some other places take such a high proportion of their income in tax. Fortunately, that is not the case here.

Question: Mr Patten, as the Government promised some more things will be done on the employees retraining programme, does it mean that the Government will financially inject into the...?

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Governor: We want to make sure it is a point that we have made clear to Mr Tam - we want to make sure that he has in the retraining board the resources that are required to do the job which our economic needs themselves require, so we do not want to see training or retraining starved of funds.