City of Culture and Arts

31.       To develop cultural and creative industries, we need to attract worldwide creative talent to Hong Kong. To this end, we need to offer not just the prospect of development but also a city with the appropriate cultural atmosphere. Hong Kong is a vibrant city with a diversified and liberal cultural life, where the East and West meet. At present, Hong Kong has more than 1 000 performing arts groups that annually stage over 10 000 performances of great variety. The Government has accepted the recommendations of the Committee on Performing Arts and will introduce a Venue Partnership Scheme covering the performance venues of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department. The scheme will foster the partnership between venue operators and performing arts groups, help develop venue-based arts promotion strategies, broaden the audience base, facilitate sponsorship, and encourage community involvement in arts development. The Government will identify new performance venues to support the development of traditional Chinese and other performing arts. We will also inject $40 million into the Arts and Sport Development Fund to buttress support for the cultural sector.

32.       On the sports development front, Hong Kong is now uniquely presented with a golden opportunity. The 2008 Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Equestrian Events are to be staged in Hong Kong. This demonstrates our country’s trust in and support for us. We will also host the East Asian Games in 2009. It is the SAR Government’s strategy in sports development to promote sports in the community, to develop elite sports, and to make Hong Kong a major location for international sports events. To achieve this aim, a multi-purpose stadium complex fully equipped for international events has been included in the Southeast Kowloon Development Plan. The Government has also earmarked funding to embark on the redevelopment of the Hong Kong Sports Institute to provide world-class training facilities for local athletes. We will allocate an additional $70 million in recurrent expenditure to provide comprehensive support for our elite athletes and to enable the National Sports Associations to intensify their participation in community activities and the School Sports Programme.