WebProNews

Hong Kong's leader Tung Chee-hwa has acknowledged flaws in his leadership and vowed to take steps to help the city's poor population.

"We have taken heed of public criticisms of our governance We will gauge the mood of the people more accurately and listen more closely to their opinions," he said.

People in Hong Kong have marched in the streets twice in the past year and a half, demanding more democracy.

"We were indecisive when dealing with emergencies," Tung said. "These shortcomings and inadequacies have undermined the credibility of our policy-making capability and our ability to govern."

"We will take practical measures to mitigate antagonism between different strata. We will seriously address the problem of poverty to break the cycle of inter-generational poverty," Tung claimed.

"Mr Tung's mea culpa comes less than a month after an unusual public reprimand from Hu Jintao, China's president, in which he compared Hong Kong unfavourably with Macao and urged Hong Kong's leadership to "turn back and look over the past seven years and find out what has gone wrong".

The chief executive's speech focused on social welfare, cultural and environmental issues but provided few significant initiatives and touched only briefly on controversial topics such as political reform and a government plan for a massive cultural complex."

WebProNews | Breaking eBusiness News
Your source for investigative ebusiness reporting and breaking news.