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In the meantime both the Secretary for Transport and the Secretary for Health and Welfare will, through their contacts with the transport operators and representatives of the disabled groups, ensure that the momentum we have built up continues.

May I once again thank you for coming this afternoon. It has been a privilege for me to chair these meetings and to see the progress we have made. I hope you will all now join me at the exhibition downstairs.

It has been a real pleasure to see the genuine progress that's been made over the last few years. I think, to repeat myself, I think that is a tribute to our ability to work together intelligently without too much rhetoric but a lot of determination to ensure that all our citizens in Hong Kong gets as fair a deal as possible and get the maximum opportunity to make full use of their abilities and talents.

Thank you very much indeed.

End

Chief Secretary's question-and-answer session

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The following is the transcript of the Chief Secretary, Mrs Anson Chan's question-and-answer session after receiving the International Association of Business Communicators Hong Kong Chapter's Communicator of the Year Award today (Thursday):

Question: (inaudible)

Chief Secretary: I think I would take as my starting point the provisions in the Basic Law and Joint Declaration which guarantee the future SAR Government all forms of freedom. And of course, one of the most precious freedoms we have in Hong Kong is freedom of the press - of expression, of assembly and others.

I think that there are two parties to this particular issue. On the part of the Government, we have always recognised, and indeed particularly in recent years we have done our very best to review all our legislation to make sure that they conform with the Bill of Rights Ordinance, that our legislation does not in any way inhibit or prevent freedom of expression of the press. And to that extent, we have made suitable amendments to the law, we have removed certain restrictions, but at the same time having very much regard to the need to balance on the one hand the rights of the individual, of the press, to the way that they operate, against the rights of the public for protection of privacy, etc. And I believe that we have struck the right balance.