The following is issued on behalf of the Hospital Authority:

     During the winter surge, the Hospital Authority is closely monitoring the service demand of Accident and Emergency Departments and the occupancy rate of medical wards in public hospitals. Key service statistics are being issued daily for public information. Details are in the appended table.

     Power of Love Centaline Charity Fund Dialysis Centre Limited has been issued Public Subscription Permit to hold a territory-wide flag sale from 7am to 12.30pm today (December 22), a spokesman for the Social Welfare Department (SWD) said. 

     For enquiries, please call the SWD's hotline at 2343 2255, or the Charitable Fund-raising Control Team at 2832 4311 during office hours. Information on the flag days of the month is available at the SWD's website (www.swd.gov.hk/en/index/site_whatsnew/). Permits for flag days containing contact information of the flag-selling organisations and information on the approved flag-selling activities have also been uploaded to the SWD's website (www.swd.gov.hk/en/index/site_pubsvc/page_controlofc/sub_recentlyap/). For enquiries about the detailed flag-selling arrangements, please contact the individual flag-selling organisations.

     Details of the charitable fund-raising activities covered by Public Subscription Permit issued by the SWD have also been uploaded to the GovHK website (www.gov.hk/fundraising).

     In the case of suspected fraudulent flag day activities, people should not make any donation and should immediately report the matter to the Police, the spokesman added.

     Following the press release on the progress of opening-up investigation in second stage of holistic assessment strategy for Hung Hom Station Extension under Shatin to Central Link (SCL) Project issued earlier today (December 21), the latest results are now available at the Highways Department's website for the SCL project (www.hyd.gov.hk/en/road_and_railway/railway_projects/scl/index.html) for reference by the public.

     With regard to recent media reports on the Hong Kong Airlines Limited's (HKA) changes to the board of directors and its financial situation, the Transport and Housing Bureau (THB) today (December 21) gave the following response:

     HKA has informed the THB in writing of its recent changes to the board of directors. Based on our observations, there has been no abnormality in HKA's daily operations and services since its changes to the board of directors. At the same time, under its recurrent regulatory regime and supervision mechanism, the Civil Aviation Department (CAD) also considers HKA's existing operations normal from the perspective of aviation safety. Through its established mechanism, the CAD will continue to monitor all local airlines, including HKA, to ensure that their aircraft are operated in accordance with the conditions set out in the Air Navigation (Hong Kong) Order 1995 (Cap. 448C) and CAD's Air Operator's Certificates Requirements Document (CAD 360).

     Under the prevailing regulatory regime, in case of changes to shareholding and/or senior management, designated airlines of Hong Kong have to ensure compliance with the civil aviation legislations and relevant requirements under the Basic Law, including the requirements of being incorporated and having the principal place of business in Hong Kong (IPPB), as well as requirements on aviation safety.

      With regard to the financial situation of HKA, we noted that the Air Transport Licensing Authority (ATLA) has been following up on it and has, in accordance with the Air Transport (Licensing of Air Services) Regulations (Cap. 448A), requested the HKA to explain the situation. ATLA would continue to keep in view the development and take necessary follow-up action(s) on the matter. The THB has no further information to supplement at this moment.

     Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for Transport and Housing, Mr Frank Chan Fan, on the Long Term Housing Strategy Annual Progress Report 2018 at a media session this afternoon (December 21):

Reporter: Mr Chan, there seems a pretty significant shortfall in terms of public housing production. What do you plan to address this problem, measures like Lantau (Tomorrow) Vision and so forth are extremely long-term. How efficient would they be in tackling the problem?
 
Secretary for Transport and Housing: There is apparently a shortfall in terms of public housing supply target of 315 000 units as compared to the land that we have ascertained as of today. But there are many options that we can pursue, for example, the increase in residential plot ratio for public housing sites, this is approved by the Executive Council and we have also submitted a relevant paper to the Housing Panel of the legislature (Legislative Council). This is one. 
 
     The second one is about the reallocation of land which is currently being allocated for private housing could be changed over to public housing. In fact, in June this year, the Chief Executive had reallocated nine parcels of land for that purpose.
 
     Thirdly, we can speed up the process like the statutory zoning, planning and associated statutory processes and also the construction processes, so that we could make those public housing available more speedily. On top of that, we also have the opportunity of having new development areas in the New Territories and also those far-sighted options which are going to be considered and to be reported to the Chief Executive by the Task Force on Land Supply. Hopefully all these would put together options and arrangements that we can find sufficient land for public housing and also for private housing.

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