Press Releases

     Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Mr Raymond Tam, at a media standup this afternoon (January 5) after distributing to the public leaflets of the "Consultation Document on the Methods for Selecting the Chief Executive in 2017 and for Forming the Legislative Council in 2016":

     We have now entered into January which means it is now the second month of our five-month consultation period. If I use the comparison of driving a car, we are now changing from the first to the second gear. Therefore, the pacing of our consultation work would be enhanced and our meetings with various sectors of the community would be more frequent.

     Our work, basically, would be going along three fronts. First, for the Legislative Council, we are meeting with 67 Legislative Councillors over four dinners hosted by the Chief Secretary for Administration. We would be attending two deputation meetings on the 11th and 18th of January. We will also be meeting with the management, or the central committees, of various political parties over the next two to three weeks time.

     For the district level, just like today, I and Mr Lau Kong-wah would be the first batch (of officials) coming out on the street to meet with our people directly, to distribute our leaflets and to talk to them. The next batch, certainly, would be the Secretary for Justice as well as the Chief Secretary for Administration. The purpose is that we would through this channel and through the reporting by media let our people know that we are now hosting a consultation and we would very much like especially the silent majority to come out and put forward their proposals to us so that our consultation would be authentic and our results would correctly reflect the majority view of the community. We would also visit the 18 District Councils as well as the district organisations.

     Last but not least, we would continue to contact the rest of our community through the Internet, our Facebook as well as through attending various media interviews so that we can arouse the public to know and to pay more attention to the consultation and so that we would as a whole be able to implement universal suffrage by 2017.

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

Ends/Sunday, January 5, 2014