1997 — Page 528

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HONG KONG PROVISIONAL URBAN COUNCIL

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grateful to the Department for its continued effort to solicit sponsorship. Indirectly, such sponsorship by advertising agencies will help to extend the coverage of the Council's sports programmes.

Finally, it is my hope that a 'sponsors' compliment banners publicity scheme' can be introduced in some of the existing Urban Council venues, such as museums, libraries, the Science Museum, the Space Museum, the Hong Kong Museum of History, the Museum of Art as well as two venues which have been planned for construction, namely the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence and the Hong Kong Film Archive. This kind of publicity is a common practice in overseas countries. All these suggestions are in connection with the existing venues and programmes of the Council. I envisage that my suggestions will, on the one hand, help to increase the Council's revenues, and on the other hand, promote its activities. In respect of cost saving, we certainly will, as in past years, continue to adopt a prudent approach in managing our finances. I hope in the next 3 years, the Council will achieve a balance of revenue and expenditure without affecting the standard of services that we pledged to the public. Lastly, I would like to thank my colleagues.

Mr. Chairman, with these remarks, I support the motion.

MR. AMBROSE CHEUNG WING-SUM (in Cantonese): Mr. Chairman and Colleagues. I would like to speak on two issues today. One is the matter of crisis; the other is management. I hope to be able to view, from a macro perspective, the crisis that Hong Kong is facing today and the ways to deal with it. I shall then examine the Urban Council in the same light to see if there is anything we can learn from the situation since the Urban Council can be regarded as Hong Kong in miniature.

I had originally wanted to focus my discussion in this year's Annual Conventional Debate on the work of three major Working Groups and Working Parties, namely those on the Hong Kong Stadium, Western Corridor Railway and itinerant hawkers. But when I saw what has happened in Hong Kong during the last few months, I realized that the work of the above- mentioned Working Groups/Parties is, in fact, rather simple. My hope is that there will be a better management plan for the Stadium in 1998, that the KCRC will come up with a plan for the Western Corridor Railway that is acceptable to the Government, and that there will be a plan to accommodate licensed itinerant hawkers. In my view, these problems are getting simpler and less significant. What I wish to talk about instead is the situation that Hong Kong is facing today.

If we open the newspapers, we might see many shocking headlines on one page and the Government's reaction on the opposite page. The shocking headlines show that Hong Kong is, in fact, in the midst of a crisis, a crisis that we have never encountered over the last two decades and one with which we have no experience of dealing. This crisis is structural and multi-dimensional.

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