Tsang made the remarks in London on July 5 (London time) following meetings with the English Speaking Union (ESU) and the UK eUniversities.

The ESU, established in 1918, is a non-profit, non-political education charity that promotes international understanding and human achievement through the widening use of English as the language of the global village. The ESU Hong Kong chapter was established in December last year.

During a meeting with members of the ESU's Board of Governors, Tsang noted that English remained one of Hong Kong's two official languages. "We consider that adopting English as an official language is one of our most important assets," he said.

It is of vital importance for Hong Kong to continue to improve the English standards, while at the same time improving the standards of written and spoken Chinese. "This is where our advantage lies," Tsang added.

Tsang disclosed that more native English speaking teachers would soon be recruited from Britain and other countries such as the United States, Australia and New Zealand to bolster the teaching of English in primary schools.

He was briefed on the development of the recently-established UK eUniversities, a public-private partnership initiated by the British government to widen access in Britain and globally to UK higher education through on-line courses.

The UK eUniversities project was extremely interesting because it aimed to provide high quality education services to a greater number of people but cheaper than if they attended a traditional university campus.

Tsang stressed the need to ensure that Hong Kong continued to move up the value chain in the knowledge-based global economy.

"As we are promoting lifelong education in Hong Kong this is a new type of education model that we may be able to learn something from," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency July 6, 2002)