The newly appointed Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Donald Tsang said although his two-year office term is short, he will not "start painting on a white paper" and will start his work with restoring citizens' confidence and offering more job opportunities for them.

In an exclusive interview with Xinhua on Thursday, Tsang said, "If we work together, the HKSAR will thrive and grow with renewed energy and dynamism."

His dream is to build Hong Kong into a city where sensible, pragmatic economic polices provide for steady growth and good employment prospects; a city that commands self-respect; a city where people of different races, different religions, and different social classes live in harmony, and a city which citizens take pride in.

Tsang always believes that Hong Kong is one of the best cities in the world. He said Hong Kong is a unique city that can be compared with New York and London. During the 24-hour "global financial times," Hong Kong, New York and London are three time zones.

One of Hong Kong's advantage is that Hong Kong is located in a place whose surrounding economies vary greatly.

Tsang said that with the backing of the booming economy of the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong has great potential to serve the surrounding regions and countries.

Talking about Hong Kong, where he was born and grew up, Tsang was full of passion and optimistic about Hong Kong's future.

He admitted that affected by the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) epidemic in 2003, Hong Kong's economy had encountered difficulties, that citizens had complaints, and that their confidence declined.

However, Tsang said, Hong Kong's advantages still exist -- a mature economic system, sound legal system and Hong Kong people's spirit of going all out to win success.

He said his job is to restore the confidence of citizens and give full play to Hong Kong's economic advantages.

Tsang said Hong Kong's economic recovery is well on the track, and that the trade, tourism, local consumption, and property sectors have witnessed sound development, with the support from the central government and Hong Kong citizens.

"I believe I have a chance to do a good job and my 'Hong Kong dream' could be realized."

On offering more job opportunities to citizens, he said he does not worry about the fact that there is a number of impoverished people among Hong Kong's population, but worries about the possibility that the poor will remain the poor.

Tsang said the most important task for him is to enhancing governance, advancing economic development steadily and creating more job opportunities for Hong Kong citizens.

For quite a long period, a number of surveys in Hong Kong have indicated that Hong Kong citizens had been attaching great importance to economic development and livelihood of citizens.

Tsang expects his new government to do a better job in economic development. He said Hong Kong has undergone economic restructuring since the 1950s and that most of the cases in the past years were that one sort of manufacturing industry was transformed into another.

While the on-going economic restructuring is different, which requires high-quality personnel. Some elder people have difficulties finding new jobs at present, Tsang admitted.

To help them find new jobs, the HKSAR government has allocated a large amount of money for personnel training in the past two years. In the government expenditure, over 23 Hong Kong dollars among 100 HK (US$12.8) is used for training, the highest ratio among the global economic entities.

Tsang did not elaborate on economic development, but said he would list improving social harmony and promoting economic vitality as priority tasks in the policy framework.

Tsang said the enhancing of governance is both the expectation of the Hong Kong citizens and the central government.

He emphasized that it is very important to know what citizens are concerned about the most and what their needs are, adding only the people-first governance can win extensive support from citizens.

On promoting Hong Kong's overseas economic cooperation, Tsang said it is very important to enhance international cooperation with the United States, European countries, Australia, Southeast Asian countries and other regions.

However, he said, the most important work is the market promotion in the Chinese mainland, as Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland market are closed linked.

He disclosed that another of his dream is of Hong Kong's better economic development, which could make contributions to the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Tsang said that in the past few years, Hong Kong citizens have observed the central government's care and support for Hong Kong and the economic achievements of the motherland.

Tsang said he believed that in the overall economic system of the nation, "we expect Hong Kong to be a blood-making machine of the nation, and continue to transfuse fresh blood into the national economic system."

He said Hong Kong has been benefiting from the Chinese mainland/Hong Kong Closer Economic Arrangement (CEPA) and that it will also play a more active role in promoting economic development of the motherland.

Describing Hong Kong as the most ideal economic bridge of the nation, Tsang said, "We will offer our best services."

On his two-year term of office as Hong Kong's CE, Tsang said although he dose not expect to obtain all the objectives within the two years, he hopes for a good beginning.

He said the key to problems is the clearly defined policies, highly transparent administration and steady implementation of adopted policies.

Tsang has been in a packed working schedules since he assumed office as the CE. During the first day of his work as the CE, he chaired a meeting of the Executive Council in the morning, met with media in the noon and visited the rainstorm-hit areas in the afternoon. During the second working day, he attended a question-and-answer meeting of the Legislative Council, the first dialogue between the administration and the legislature.

For his two years' work, he has set specific goals. For instance, to further reduce Hong Kong's current unemployment rate of 5.7 percent.

He encouraged himself by saying that "born to an ordinary family and being a junior salesman 40 years ago," he could not have taken the core post of Hong Kong if Hong Kong had not returned to the motherland. He also attributed his appointment as the CE to the implementation of the principles of "Hong Kong people running Hong Kong" and a high degree of autonomy as well as the trust of the central government and Hong Kong citizens.

Tsang finally ended the interview by expecting all citizens to share the "Hong Kong dream" with him.

(Xinhua News Agency July 1, 2005)