CE's speech in delivering "The Chief Executive's 2024 Policy Address" to LegCo (1) (with photos/video)
Following is the translation of the speech made by the Chief Executive, Mr John Lee, in delivering "The Chief Executive's 2024 Policy Address" to the Legislative Council this morning (October 16):
Mr President, Honourable Members and fellow citizens,
I. Reform and Embrace Changes to Achieve Prosperity
1. This is my third Policy Address.
2. The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC Central Committee) adopted the Resolution of the CPC Central Committee on Further Deepening Reform Comprehensively to Advance Chinese Modernization. The Resolution calls on Hong Kong to fully harness the institutional strengths of "One Country, Two Systems" while consolidating and enhancing its status as an international financial, shipping and trade centre. It also supports Hong Kong's position to become an international hub for high-calibre talents, to exert a greater role in our country's opening up to the world, and to deepen collaboration within the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) through better harmonisation of rules and mechanisms.
3. In running for office, more than two years ago, I stated that "we must embrace a reform mind-set" and we "need further revamping". I proposed to build a "result-oriented" government, setting key performance indicators (KPIs) to create a new government culture. I put forward a series of reform measures, including the establishment of Care Teams to enhance district services, introduction of the Advance Allocation Scheme to shorten the waiting time for public housing, and assistance to junior secondary students living in subdivided units (SDUs) for tackling intergenerational poverty. I believe that we must maintain our development momentum and self-renewal, and that we must embrace changes while staying principled, innovative and flexible in meeting challenges and opportunities.
4. Regarding system reforms, I work on the principle that anything essential but lacking in the system must be established; any serious shortcomings must be rectified; any bottlenecks, weaknesses or hurdles must be overcome; and any areas in need of consolidation must be reinforced and improved. In the reform process, we have to decide what should be built from scratch, what should be overhauled to set things right, and what should be consolidated and bolstered. In taking forward reforms, we must have a systemic mind-set and manage the relationships between overall and local interests, between the present and the future, between macro and micro concerns. While we may make reference to the successful experiences of other places, we cannot adopt them directly given the differences in the basis and structure of our systems. Our reform proposals must take heed of the prevailing circumstances and be tailored to local conditions.
5. Since becoming Chief Executive, I have carried out reforms along the above principle.
6. On implementation of "One Country, Two Systems", we fulfilled the constitutional responsibility to enact local legislation for Article 23 of the Basic Law; we reformed the institutional set-up of the District Councils by implementing the principle of "patriots administering Hong Kong"; we enacted a new legislation to enable an essentially automatic extension of land leases in an orderly manner for a term of 50years to beyond 2047, manifesting the long-term adherence to "One Country, Two Systems".
7. On governance, we reformed the government structure and reshuffled the duties among policy bureaux, increasing their number from 13 to 15. We created three new Deputy Secretaries of Department to strengthen co-ordination of work across bureaux, setting up task forces led by the Deputy Secretaries to enhance implementation. We cultivated a government culture focusing on results. We also introduced a mechanism mobilising the Government at all levels to respond to major incidents.
8. In economic development, we established the Hong Kong Investment Corporation Limited (HKIC) to optimise the use of government funds for the development of industries and our economy. We pressed ahead with the development of the "eight centres" and the Northern Metropolis, taking an industry-oriented approach. We set up the Hong Kong Talent Engage (HKTE) and the Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises (OASES) to strengthen our efforts in trawling for talents and enterprises. We also established Hong Kong as a regional hub for higher education.
9. As for people's livelihood, we implemented healthcare reform and took steps to build our primary review mechanism for drugs and medical devices. We set up a system for bringing in healthcare professionals to alleviate manpower shortage in the public healthcare system. We also launched Light Public Housing (LPH) to fill short-term gaps in the supply of public housing, and established the Task Force on Tackling the Issue of Subdivided Units. We pooled resources for targeted poverty alleviation. We established an annual review mechanism for minimum wage protection. We also rationalised traffic flow among the three road harbour crossings.
10. Reform is a continuous process. Over the past two years, my team and I have focused on economic growth and on improving people's livelihood through development, with the well-being of the people of Hong Kong close to our hearts. This Policy Address will deepen our reforms and explore new growth areas. Measures include building an international gold trading market, promoting high value-added maritime services, and building a commodity trading ecosystem and internationally-accredited metal warehouses. We will promulgate the Development Outline for the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Park in the Loop, building a testing ground for policy and institutional innovation. We will also set up a working group on developing the low-altitude economy.
11. In this Policy Address, I will continue to follow through the "four proposals" put forward by President Xi Jinping in his important speech delivered on 1July2022. I will also outline our vision and objectives for reforms and changes, as well as the related key measures and KPIs. A Supplement offering more details on the policy measures and related matters has also been compiled.
(To be continued.)
CE's speech in delivering "The Chief Executive's 2024 Policy Address" to LegCo (1) Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases
CE's speech in delivering "The Chief Executive's 2024 Policy Address" to LegCo (1) Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases
Speech by FS at CUHK EMBA Annual Conference
Following is the speech by the Financial Secretary, Mr Paul Chan, at the CUHK EMBA Annual Conference today (May 9):
Professor Dennis Lo (Vice-Chancellor and President, the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)), Professor Lin Zhou (Dean, CUHK Business School), Macy (Chairperson of Organizing Committee, Ms Macy Chan), Michael (Chairperson of Organizing Committee, Mr Michael Chan), CUHK EMBA alumni and students, business leaders, distinguished guests and friends,
Good evening.
Addressing a room full of Executive MBA students and graduates is both an honour and a privilege. There is a particular kind of ambition in this room — one that is not content with success alone, but driven to understand it more deeply, in the belief that better ideas lead to greater impact.
That kind of commitment — to learning, to growth, to asking harder questions — is precisely what today's conversation is about.
The theme of this conference, which focuses on innovation and agile leadership, could not be more timely. Most of us here have lived through the Internet age and the smartphone revolution, which made communication faster and more seamless than anyone had imagined.
Today, the rise of AI places us at a more fundamental tipping point. Technology is not merely changing the answers — it is redefining the questions themselves.
Consider what is already within reach. An AI assistant can learn your preferences, curate a personalised shortlist, and simply ask for your confirmation. We should even ask whether the smartphone and the search engine will remain our primary gateways to the digital world, or whether something altogether new is already taking shape.
To draw an analogy, the power of technology does not lie in drawing the old map with greater precision. It lies in revealing how much of that map remains uncharted — and in showing us that entirely new maps, with new co-ordinates, are being drawn.
This redefinition is unfolding across three dimensions simultaneously.
First, the redefinition of products. Products are no longer discrete, standalone objects. A smart car is a vehicle, but also a mobile platform for data. An insurance policy can be a contract, but equally a dynamic reflection of health data. Innovation today is born from cross-sector convergence and continuous evolution.
Second, the redefinition of services. Services are no longer delivered solely by enterprises. They emerge from collaborative networks of people and AI. But the more profound shift is in what customers now expect. In the past, good service meant reaching the right person quickly. Today, customers expect a solution that anticipates their needs before articulating them. This requires a new architecture of service delivery: human and machine, with AI handling the scale, the speed, and the personalisation that no human team alone could sustain.
Third, and most importantly, the redefinition of business models. In the past, we sought optimal solutions within established frameworks — when demand rose, we expanded capacity; when service needs grew, we opened more branches. Technology invites us to break out of those frameworks entirely. Intelligent manufacturing means that "economies of scale" is no longer the only answer; flexible supply chains have made customised, on-demand production the new normal.
These three redefinitions are opening a commercial frontier unlike anything we have seen before. But if the benefits of technology accrue only to a small circle, its power remains fundamentally constrained. This brings me to the second message I want to leave with you today: inclusivity.
Inclusivity is not charity. Yet it is the smartest business strategy available. The unmet needs of the broader public represent the largest and most underserved market opportunity in existence. When you make quality healthcare, education and financial services accessible and affordable to ordinary residents, you are not serving a group in need of handouts — you are unlocking a vast market that traditional business models have consistently overlooked.
Hong Kong has a distinctive role to play here. We can be a co-architect of standards, a hub for capital, and a bridge between innovation and real-world deployment — from clinical validation of smart healthcare, to green technology financing, to regulatory sandboxes for fintech. Our contribution draws not only on institutional strengths and international networks, but on our genuine commitment to broad-based participation.
Yet inclusive products and services are only the first step. The deeper dimension is empowerment.
History reminds us that the dividends of technological revolution need to be actively guided to reach the many. In the age of steam, and again in the Internet era, early gains concentrated among capital owners and top-tier talent. But today we have the opportunity to write a different story. AI, as an amplifier of human capability, is already enabling what was previously unimaginable: a solo entrepreneur, with the right tools and the right vision, can build a unicorn.
In other words, the unit of competitive advantage is shifting — from the size of your team to the skill with which you orchestrate your tools.
Our mission should be to make that shift available to everyone. To turn individual readiness into collective prosperity, and to ensure that the productivity gains of AI flow broadly across the society.
This is precisely why, in this year's Budget, I placed such emphasis on the "AI Training for All" initiative.
We are not trying to turn everyone into an engineer. We are ensuring that workers, managers, SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) owners, and ordinary residents become capable collaborators with AI: people who can access it, use it effectively, and put it to work as their assistant.
That may sound ambitious, but consider this: if AI can one day be as intuitive as the smartphone, then mass adoption is not difficult to imagine at all. Just as computers once migrated from specialist facilities into offices and homes, AI will find its way into everyone's daily work and life.
For business leaders, it may be tempting to think of AI as "digital employee" that can replace existing workers. But think of a different framing: equipping your workforce with powerful digital assistants can achieve productivity gains, while also freeing your people to do what humans do best — create, imagine and innovate.
Companies that take those extra steps, and think those extra moves ahead, will find that an empowered workforce is also a more innovative one.
All in all, the power of technology must ultimately be measured by its contribution to inclusive growth. And inclusive growth, in the end, depends on, yes, commercial acumen — but also empathy, compassion, and the conviction that a rising tide should lift all boats. I can see that those qualities live in this room.
I will close with this thought. Someone once joked that economists know the price of everything and the value of nothing. With AI, let us never fall into the same trap — in our race to price every efficiency gain, let us not lose sight of the deeper value we are trying to create: a society where the fruits of innovation are broadly shared, and where technology lifts not just the fortunate few, but everyone willing to reach for it.
So here is my ask: let us grow the pie together. And make sure we cut it well.
Thank you very much.
Source: AI-found images
Speech by FS at CUHK EMBA Annual Conference Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases
Speech by FS at CUHK EMBA Annual Conference Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases
Source: AI-found images
