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Letter to the Editor of New York Times dated 13 October 2006 - Response to the editorial entitled "Something in Hong Kong's Air"
I refer to your editorial 'Something in Hong Kong's Air' on October 13. Far from your claim of a missed opportunity, HK's Chief Executive Donald Tsang in his Policy Address has laid out a comprehensive strategy to deal with pollution.
We have adopted a Joint Air Quality Management Plan with the Guangdong province with clear targets to cut about 50% of major air pollutants by 2010. Effective measures include the restriction to use only natural gas for all new power plants, progressive tightening of vehicular emission standards. For HK, our public transport policy has resulted in 95% of the traveling public using the public transport system, a model for many cities to follow suit.
The Chief Executive also announced a US$410 million plan to help phase out 74,000 older diesel vehicles, and financial concessions to encourage people buying environmentally friendly cars.
We spare no efforts to promote the sense of environmental stewardship in our community and together we will succeed in combating environmental pollution in our metropolis.
Dr Sarah Liao
Secretary for the Environment, Transport and Works
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