Transcript of remarks by STH

     Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for Transport and Housing, Mr Frank Chan Fan, at a media session after attending the meeting of the Legislative Council Panel on Housing today (October 29):

Reporter: Can you also talk about the road permits?

Secretary for Transport and Housing: As of today, we have issued altogether 5 000 permits to enable private cars to travel through the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. Our plan is to limit the number of cars, so that the traffic affecting the three cities, including Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macao, would be good. Therefore, it's our plan and strategy to limit the number of private cars using the bridge. We will start issuing 5 000 more (permits) starting from next week. We are expecting to have this process completed within November so that more private cars would be allowed to go through the bridge. At the same time, we have 12 000 cargo vehicles that are allowed to use the bridge anytime they like, but given the routing and also the businesses of the factories, I would expect the logistics sector and the cargo handling sector would be using more of it in due course.

Reporter: Can you also comment on last night's incident – that people had to wait for a shuttle bus for more than an hour?

Secretary for Transport and Housing: We do have a quite amazing turnout yesterday because the number of passengers travelling through Hong Kong border (boundary) is up to 78 000 and the peak is about 3 500 per hour. Although the shuttle buses had been operating according to the schedule, we had altogether 90 shuttles getting out of the port during the hours from 6 o'clock to 8 o'clock in the evening, so the number of passengers was indeed very high in that sense. Therefore it takes a little bit of time to digest.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)