XN000022-1996-09-19 — Page 3

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Question: Do you think it is a political decision because Jardines has been ruled out being one of the developers of CT9?

Governor: No, what has happened is that the allocation of terminals has been rearranged and Jardines is part of a consortium which will be managing another of the terminals, rather ahead of the position which would have been the case if they had been involved with CT9. So I think if anybody thought there was any political gain to be made in this they must be wondering about the result.

Question: Mr Patten, the Senior British Trade Commissioner, Francis Cornish, has called for restraint relating to the Diaoyu Islands protests and the anti-Japanese sentiments that we saw yesterday. Where do you stand on that and are you concerned about the level of protests?

Governor: This is a free society and in a free society people are of course able to express their views, within the law. We know that people in Hong Kong feel very strongly about this issue. We know that from the numbers, for example, who have been involved in demonstrations. But we also know that people in Hong Kong want to see these views, however strongly they are felt, expressed in a calm and rational way. And I think that we can say that despite one or two unfortunate minor incidents, that has happened so far.

We are a tolerant community and a moderate community and I think that an indication of that tolerance and moderation is that even when you feel passionately strongly about something, you respect other people's rights, you respect other people's opinions and you don't go outside the law. So I very much hope that people will continue, when they feel strongly about issues, to express their views as moderately as possible.

Question: Governor, don't you think it is about time the JLG discusses matters regarding the transferral of government properties?

Governor: Well, the JLG have discussed the transfer of government properties on a number of occasions. I am not quite sure what the difficulty is. I am not going to set off on 30 June at midnight next year carrying the Central Government Offices under my arm, I am not going to be setting off with 12 gross of the Government's elastic bands in my pocket. The assets that are left for the SAR Government will be the assets which have been owned by the present Hong Kong Government and of course those assets will include the huge fiscal reserves which should, I would guess, by the middle of next year, total altogether about 150 billion.