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for cultural facilities have dropped. If we could ease their burden in terms of the charges for these cultural facilities to enable them to patronize these facilities, the merits of the Urban Council would be more obvious. Accordingly, for certain venues, not only should their charges be reduced but free admission should also be granted.
Secondly, the reason for our support of Ms. Chow's amended motion is the part about supplementary provision. We support the argument that supplementary provision should not be made a condition, whereby there would be reduction or freezing of charges if there was supplementary provision, or else there would not be any. As Mr. Lat Wing-lin proposed, we should begin with ourselves by cutting down on whatever that could be cut down on and reducing whatever that could be reduced. When even this fails to meet the purpose, then we should work out the next step in response to needs. Members of the DAB therefore support Ms. Chow's amended motion. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MR. CHIANG SAI-CHEONG (in Cantonese): As the Chairman of the Finance Select Committee, I already mentioned in the Annual Convention Debate that apart from reducing some of the rentals, the rentals should be frozen for one year as the motion proposes. I was handling the problem with an active approach, hoping that something could be done in the development of new sources of income. While we support the proposal of freezing the rentals (as in Mr. Cheung Yu-yan's original motion), I hope that we could take the lead in increasing the Council's revenue from advertisement and rentals. There are a lot of venues in the urban area which are managed by the Council. I hope that without upsetting the local environment, advertisement spaces will be made available on the external and internal facades of these buildings or in conspicuous areas as a means to earn more income.
As for the Council's cultural activities, I hope that sponsorship in the form of advertisement could also be introduced. At present we have three cultural performing groups, which are the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre, Hong Kong Dance Company and Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. I wonder if we could find some sole agents or sub-agents for advertisement. We should study in detail such a possibility. If this was practicable, our income from advertisement would increase.
As for recreational and sport activities, promotion through advertisement has already been introduced to some of these activities, such as the Hang Seng Cup Youth Table-Tennis Promotion Scheme sponsored by the Hang Seng Bank and the Coca-Cola Football Promotion Scheme sponsored by Coca-Cola. In this connection, we should thank the Department for its efforts in soliciting advertiser sponsorship.
As far as this is concerned, there are two advantages. Firstly, advertiser sponsorship has played an indirect part in promoting the coverage of the
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HONG KONG PROVISIONAL URBAN COUNCIL
555
for cultural facilities have dropped. If we could ease their burden in terms of the charges for these cultural facilities to enable them to patronize these facilities, the merits of the Urban Council would be more obvious. Accordingly, for certain venues, not only should their charges be reduced but free admission should also be granted.
Secondly, the reason for our support of Ms. Cнow's amended motion is the part about supplementary provision. We support the argument that supplementary provision should not be made a condition, whereby there would be reduction or freezing of charges if there was supplementary provision, or else there would not be any. As Mr. Lat Wing-lin proposed, we should begin with ourselves by cutting down on whatever that could be cut down on and reducing whatever that could be reduced. When even this fails to meet the purpose, then we should work out the next step in response to needs. Members of the DAB therefore support Ms. Cнow's amended motion. Thank you. Mr. Chairman.
MR. CHIANG SAI-Cheong (in Cantonese):-As the Chairman of the Finance Select Committee, I already mentioned in the Annual Conventional Debate that apart from reducing some of the rentals, the rentals should be frozen for one year as the motion proposes. I was handling the problem with an active approach, hoping that something could be done in the development of new sources of income. While we support the proposal of freezing the rentals (as in Mr. CHEUNG Yu-yan's original motion). I hope that we could take the lead in increasing the Council's revenue from advertisement and rentals. There are a lot of venues in the urban area which are managed by the Council. I hope that without upsetting the local environment, advertisement spaces will be made available on the external and internal facades of these buildings or in conspicuous areas as a means to earn more income.
As for the Council's cultural activities, I hope that sponsorship in the form of advertisement could also be introduced. At present we have three cultural performing groups, which are the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre, Hong Kong Dance Company and Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. I wonder if we could find some sole agents or sub-agents for advertisement. We should study in detail such a possibility. If this was practicable, our income from advertisement would increase.
As for recreational and sport activities, promotion through advertisement has already been introduced to some of these activities, such as the Hang Seng Cup Youth Table-Tennis Promotion Scheme sponsored by the Hang Seng Bank and the Coca-Cola Football Promotion Scheme sponsored by Coca- Cola. In this connection we should thank the Department for its efforts in soliciting advertiser sponsorship.
As far as this is concerned, there are two advantages. Firstly, advertiser sponsorship has played an indirect part in promoting the coverage of the
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