Hong Kong: New governing team for next 5 yrs

Hong Kong, June 23: Hong Kong's leader unveiled a new, reshuffled cabinet today, a team that will face tough challenges in the next five years from pollution to making good on the chief executive's promises on democracy.

Among the notable appointments, Henry Tang will shift from being financial secretary to chief secretary the city's number two post as head of the civil service.

And John Tsang, the former private secretary of the last British governor Chris Patten, will become financial secretary. Tsang is now director of the Chief Executive's Office.

''I have every confidence they'll deliver the best to Hong Kong,'' Chief Executive Donald Tsang, flanked by his 15 principal officials, told a press conference. The two Tsangs are not related.

The chief executive said his new team was ''energetic'', ''patriotic'' and shared his ''governing philosophy'' to help deliver on pledges put forward as part of his campaign for re-election in March.

''It will be a people-based government to feel the public pulse and to embrace the public sentiment,'' said Donald Tsang.

Among the biggest issues facing the government in the five-year term that starts on July 1 is political reform and the need to reconcile public calls for direct elections as soon as possible with Beijing's aversion to quick moves on that front.

Calls have also been growing for the government to do more to clean up the city's filthy skies and address a growing wealth gap.

His reshuffled cabinet, includes six newcomers who Tsang said would ''add new blood'' to the governing team.

The posts will take effect at the start of July on the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong's reversion from British to Chinese rule, with Chinese President Hu Jintao widely expected to swear in Tsang and his cabinet.

One symbolic and potentially controversial inclusion is Tsang Tak-sing, an overtly pro-Beijing loyalist who becomes the secretary for home affairs.

Tsang, 58, is a former chief editor for the pro-Beijing Hong Kong newspaper Ta Kung Pao who was jailed for two years in 1967 for his involvement in riots sparked by pro-communist leftists agitating against the British colonial government.

He is the younger brother of Tsang Yok-sing, a former chairman of the city's largest pro-Beijing party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong.

Tsang Tak-sing and Tsang Yok-sing are not related to either of the two other Tsangs.

Reuters>