Speech on presentation of prizes to Concept Plan winners (English only)

The following is the speech (English only) given by the Secretary for Planning and Lands, Mr John C Tsang, at the West Kowloon Reclamation Concept Plan Competition Prize Presentation Ceremony today (April 18):

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is my great pleasure to see you all here today for the presentation of prizes to the five winners of the West Kowloon Reclamation Concept Plan Competition. I would like to extend a warm welcome to everyone, particularly those of you who have taken the trouble to come from overseas for this very special occasion.

For some of you, this is, of course, the moment that you have been waiting for since working those late nights back in September last year preparing your entry for the competition. Your proposals have passed the expert scrutiny of our jurors and stand in the foyer over there as worthy winners of the competition. There can be no doubt that you fully deserve the prizes that you are about to receive. My congratulations to you all.

Many more of you have a close association with the competition as proud parents, children, relatives, friends, teachers, students, or colleagues of the prize winners, or as hard-working jurors, technical panel members, organizers or professional advisers. Others among you simply take great interest in what we are trying to achieve.

I would like to thank you all for your fantastic support for the competition. I am sure that for all of you - as it is for me - this is a moment of great satisfaction.

The competition has put us firmly on the road towards realising our cherished objective of developing in Hong Kong an arts, cultural and entertainment district that is of outstanding architectural merit and places us firmly on the international cultural map.

We will not let the grass grow under our feet in taking forward development of the new district. We are working out an implementation plan that will enable us to see the project delivered quickly as a development of the highest quality. I will have more to say about that on another occasion, after we have completed our work on the plan.

Today, we are here to honour the winners of the competition. So now, without further ado, let us begin the prize presentation.

Thank you very much.

End/Thursday, April 18, 2002

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