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     The Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung; the Secretary for Home Affairs, Mr Lau Kong-wah; and the Secretary for the Civil Service, Mr Joshua Law, today (October 12) held a press conference to elaborate on initiatives in the “The Chief Executive’s 2018 Policy Address” for nurturing talent. Following is the transcript of remarks at the press conference:
     
Reporter: I would like to ask a few English questions. Just now you talked about the youth development, using the fund to help young people go to the Mainland in the Greater Bay Area for the innovation development. Can you explain, what are some of the difficulties for them right now, in terms of going to the Mainland to do some start-up projects? What are some of the difficulties that they are facing right now? And you talk about co-operating with some organisations to help them to go to the Mainland, but is it because the response in the past has been very lukewarm, that’s why you have to initiate more organisations to help these young people? And also, are you worried about a talent drain in Hong Kong, because you are emphasizing this Mainland project, other than asking young people to stay in Hong Kong to start thinking about new ideas for innovation? And also, for ethnic minorities, there doesn’t seem to be any concrete measures being proposed in the Policy Address, other than just injecting $500 million for the ethnic minorities. Are there any concrete measures to help these ethnic minorities in Hong Kong?
 
Chief Secretary for Administration: Right, okay, let me attempt to answer this question. The first question is on youth development, Greater Bay Area. Our objective is quite clear – we want to play the role of a proactive facilitator, and also to really support youths who are interested to really start their own career, at least try the new pathway. It’s entirely up to our young people to decide what they want to do, but we want to give them an additional choice in this Greater Bay Area, alright? Another runway for them to take off. And in the process, not only funding is important – material support, connections, information flow as well, otherwise they will be operating in a vacuum. You can’t just go into the Greater Bay Area yourself and find a job, not to mention starting a business. So you need a data base, a platform, from which you can actually take off. So we are now constructing this platform, in terms of material support, counselling, in terms of financial assistance, the seed money for example, and also in terms of guidance and mentorship. But all these come in a package, a multi-pronged approach. My objective as the CS overseeing a lot of these committees is to promote upward mobility for our young people, give them more choices, not a job, but a career. And in fact it’s not just the Greater Bay Area. If they go to the Greater Bay Area they can also come back to Hong Kong. In the process they gain a lot in terms of exposure, in terms of connections, in terms of networking as well, particularly in business, in start-ups and all that, and all this networking will stand them in very good stead in future career development.
 
     The second question is ethnic minorities – I chair the Steering Committee on Ethnic Minorities. It’s covered in the Policy Address. This is the pamphlet, a lot of concrete measures here. If you look at the pamphlet, it’s not in English and Chinese only, but also in six different languages catering for ethnic minority groups in Hong Kong. We are talking about really making full use of these $500 million earmarked for this exercise to help them on all fronts including employment. We will provide them with case management support through NGOs and also education, particularly the learning of Chinese as a second language. We will be providing more financial support, more teacher support at kindergarten. We want to teach them up front, learn the language up front, not when they get old or when they are in secondary schools but we  start with kindergarten. In fact, in my discussion with a lot of parents they want their kids, particularly the EM parents, to learn Chinese from day one when they enter kindergarten. So the whole package is here, alright, costing probably $600 million, more than what I’m supposed to spend.
 
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.) 
 

    

     The Secretary for Home Affairs, Mr Lau Kong-wah, today (October 12) extended his congratulations to Hong Kong table tennis athletes Li Hiu-tung, Ng Mui-wui and Wong Ka-man on winning a gold medal in Women’s Team TT11 at the Indonesia 2018 Asian Para Games.

     Mr Lau said, “Hong Kong table tennis athletes have demonstrated team spirit and achieved good results with their accurate skills and excellent strategies. I sincerely congratulate them.” read more

The following is issued on behalf of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority:

     The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) announced today (October 12) the appointment of Mr Bu Yongxiang as a Senior Adviser with effect from October 16, 2018. Mr Bu is seconded from the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) to the HKMA. He will take up the position vacated by Mr Bao Mingyou and offer advice and assistance in the areas of financial cooperation between Hong Kong and the Mainland, further development of renminbi businesses in Hong Kong, and promotion of Hong Kong’s financial services industry on the Mainland.
      
     Mr Bu was the Deputy Director General of the PBoC’s Research Institute prior to his secondment. 
      
     Mr Bao has returned to the PBoC after his secondment with the HKMA. The Chief Executive of the HKMA, Mr Norman Chan, thanked Mr Bao for his work and important contributions during his secondment term. read more

The following is issued on behalf of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority:      The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) announced today (October 12) the progress made in its handling of banking complaints received as at end… read more

     Following is the speech by the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, at the opening ceremony of the UBS Mega Art Project: World’s Largest Colouring Book today (October 12):
 
Amy (Chairman and Head of Greater China of UBS Wealth Management and Country Head of UBS Hong Kong Branch, Ms Amy Lo), Margaret (Chairman of the Po Leung Kuk, Dr Margaret Choi), John (adjudicator of Guinness World Records Mr John Garland), ladies and gentlemen, children, lovers of art, 

     Good afternoon. First and foremost, I would like to express my warmest gratitude to UBS for organising this UBS Mega Art Project: World’s Largest Colouring Book.

     UBS is Art Basel’s global partner and has long been a staunch supporter of art development in Hong Kong and of the places across the globe. This time, UBS made a good breakthrough in showcasing the creativity of Hong Kong children through paper and crayons under the theme of “Future Hong Kong: imagining tomorrow’s Hong Kong today”. What is more exciting is that the mega art project may turn out to be the largest colouring book in the world.

     Of course, this record-making project cannot be made possible without the hard work of the star artists – seven talented primary school children between the ages of 8 and 12. They have put in a lot of thought and time as well as boxes of crayons into creating this 14-metre work of art filled with fun and bright memories. But they were not alone. They had the sterling support of a 500-strong troop from Po Leung Kuk schools to take part in the colouring of the book. I am sure that they had a great time together colouring and thinking about tomorrow’s Hong Kong during the process.

     Children’s growth and development rank high on the policy areas of the current-term Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government. We firmly believe that talent, in particular our future generations, are the most important element for Hong Kong’s development. And education is the key to nurturing them. Government expenditure on education is therefore the most meaningful investment for our future.

     Since assuming office last year, we have introduced a package of measures that cover education, manpower, funding and hardware, to improve the quality of education. The total education expenditure of the current financial year has been significantly increased by 28.4 per cent and the Government has also reserved HK$3.4 billion recurrent provision for educational use which fully reflects our long-term commitment in education. In fact, in the Policy Address announced just 48 hours ago (October 10), the Chief Executive made it quite clear that education would continue to be the very important priority area for the entire government. We will boost education, for example, by introducing at one go an all-graduate teaching force in all public sector schools in Hong Kong as well as providing a life-wide learning grant of $900 million recurrent expenditure for all public sector schools in Hong Kong.

     We have also set up an ongoing, action-oriented and high-level Commission on Children under my chairmanship with cross-bureau and departmental representation to engage the children concern groups in addressing issues that children aged 14 and under may face while growing up. We create strategies and priorities and work to move them into the Government’s policy agenda on children.

     In fact, this year’s Policy Address announced by the Chief Executive two days ago has introduced new measures to strengthen our efforts in ensuring children’s healthy growth and development specifically, the Government will launch a pilot scheme in the 2018/19 school year to provide social work services in phases for about 150 000 pre-primary children and their families. We will also set up five specialised co-parenting support centres to provide support to children of separated/divorced families. There are just some of the new measures.

     We are determined to make a difference for our children and Hong Kong’s future, and I am confident that Hong Kong’s future will look as bright as the great big beautiful colouring book today. 

     Ladies and gentlemen, children, I know you can’t wait to hear now from the Guinness World Records’ official adjudicator present here today to tell us whether this is, indeed, the biggest colouring book the world has ever known. Thank you.