Opening Speech by Mr K H Lau, Director of Information Technology Services at the "Networking Hour" jointly organised by the department and the Hong Kong Information Technology Federation on 18 - 5 - 1999

President Au, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good evening! I am glad to co-host this gathering with the Hong Kong Information Technology Federation. This event is called "Networking Hour" which I think is a great name. As you all know, we are experiencing the phenomenal growth of the Internet. But to really get us into the fast track of the digital world, apart from tying the physical networks together, we also need to build a human network of the IT practitioners, for the good of the industry and the society. And towards that goal, I extend my sincere welcome to all of you here today.

Among our distinguished guests here, we are particularly honoured to have the presence of members of Ideographic Rapporteur Group of the International Standards Organization. The Ideographic Rapporteur Group, IRG in short, working under the ISO 10646 Working Group, has contributed significantly in establishing a standard set of coded ideographic characters which will enable users of these ideographic characters anywhere in the world to communicate and to conduct social, cultural and commercial activities in their native language electronically. The IRG has chosen to hold its 13th Meeting in Hong Kong and its members, coming from different parts of the world, have joined us in this gathering. Please join me in welcoming them.

The agenda of today's gathering also include an outline of the IT outsourcing strategy of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. To that, my colleagues later on will share with you why outsourcing is a win-win strategy both for the IT industry and the government departments.

I hope your will enjoy this gathering. Thank you.

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