Author Archives: hksar gov

     More than 1 300 students from 38 schools joined the “Jockey Club Mosaiculture Display by Students” at Victoria Park today (March 2). Under the guidance of some 170 green volunteers, the students worked together to help put up the spectacular mosaiculture display “Our City, Our Games!”.
 
     The parterre is a wonderful mosaic with more than 30 000 eye-catching flowers and plants including kalanchoes, carnations, myosotis, chrysanthemums and more.
 
     With a sports meet as its theme to bring in vitality, the mosaiculture display in the Hong Kong Flower Show this year aims to publicise the health benefits of sports and encourage the public to incorporate sports into their daily lives. It depicts athletes participating in eight kinds of sports in the 7th Hong Kong Games – athletics, badminton, basketball, futsal, swimming, table tennis, tennis and volleyball – as well as the Games’ demonstration event, rugby sevens.
 
     Visitors can get up close and take photos with the torch in the centre of the field or with the adorable cut-out standees of sports ball figures. In the evening, the display is enhanced with light and sound effects so that the beauty can be showcased day and night. The display will be exhibited in the coming Hong Kong Flower Show.
 
     This year’s flower show will be held in Victoria Park for 10 days from March 15 to 24 from 9am to 9pm daily, featuring “When Dreams Blossom” as the main theme and the Chinese hibiscus as the theme flower.
 
     For enquiries, please call 2601 8260 or visit the flower show webpage www.hkflowershow.hk/en/hkfs/2019/index.html.
 
     The flower show is organised by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department. The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust is supporting the flower show for the seventh consecutive year and has been the Major Sponsor of the flower show since 2014.

          

     Following is the transcript of remarks by the Financial Secretary, Mr Paul Chan, at a media session after attending a radio programme this morning (March 2):
 
Reporter: The Government said it will inject about $10 billion to the public healthcare system. Could you explain are there any concrete measures that actually help improve the services and the public hospital right now? What are the concrete measures? And secondly, the Government said it brings the housing reserve back to the fiscal reserve. What’s the point of doing that? And why didn’t the Government inject the money instead into the Housing Authority to build more public housing? Why you bring back the money to the fiscal reserve?
 
Financial Secretary: The Housing Authority’s financial position is very strong. Their forecast is that even a few years later, they still have a reserve of over $40 billion. So there is no immediate need in the foreseeable future that the Housing Authority needs an injection from the Government. At the moment, the Housing reserve is outside the accounts of the Government. So in order to promote transparency and also to enable the public to have a better understanding of the strength of the financial position of the Government, we think it is appropriate to bring back this off-account item back to the financial accounts of the Government. We bring this figure back not in one year, but in four instalments because we do not want individual year’s account to be unduly affected. That’s why we use the remaining term of this Government to bring back the reserve.
 
     As to your question about concrete measures to improve services in the public hospitals, you would realise that we utilised a total sum of $16.1 billion. The $10 billion is a stabilisation fund, which can be deployed whenever the Hospital Authority finds it necessary. Among the rest, about $700 million is to improve the allowances for medical doctors, nurses and also the remuneration of supporting staff at the Hospital Authority. Another $5 billion is to help the Hospital Authority to update their medical equipment and to acquire state-of-the-art medical equipment to improve services for our people, in particular in those cancer centres and also specialist centres. Also, we’ll utilise a few hundred million dollars to expand the types of drugs subsidised by the government. So all in all, these are short-term and medium-term measures to help improve the medical services.

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

    

     The Labour Department (LD) is investigating a fatal work accident that occurred in Kwun Tong this morning (March 2), in which a worker died.      The LD immediately deployed staff to the scene upon receiv… read more

     Police advise motorists that special traffic arrangements will be implemented in Sha Tin to facilitate the race meeting today (March 2).      The arrangements will come into effect two hours bef… read more

     A boy who went missing in Tin Shui Wai has been located.      Chan Tsz-hin, aged 13, went missing after he left his residence in Tin Ching Estate on February 28 morning. His family made a report… read more