The government acknowledges the erosion of confidence and that the civil service has problems that have to be corrected now, but Mr Tien said he worries that changes may be cosmetic and come at the expense of the junior grades.

"We need reform and not a review,"he stressed. "The civil service is bloated, overpaid, and underused, resulting in a culture of entitlement on wages and benefits and indifference to productivity and performance."

Mr Tien believes a cure lies in introducing market forces to the service by retiring large numbers of redundant civil servants quickly, reducing benefits and introducing an incentive scheme. Also, it should privatise some services rather than farm these out to the subvented organisations, which are just an extension of the civil service.

China's WTO Accession

China's accession to the WTO is expected to bring opportunities and challenges for Hong Kong business, and Mr Tien said he has also been lobbying the government to seize the opportunities China's WTO entry will present.

Accepting recommendations contained in the Chamber's WTO Report, Mr Tien said he has advised the government that it must help local companies, especially the small and medium enterprises, to get established on the mainland.

"I specifically asked that the government co-ordinate the various departments involved with facilitating commerce and the Trade Development Council. I said the government had to make sure our SMEs benefit the most from the total opening up of the mainland market,"he said.

Conversion and conservation

For the present Legco year, Mr Tien said he will be focusing on environmental protection, which he believes can be advanced through the two Cs -- conversion and conservation.

He said he has been actively pushing the government to expand its timid programme to convert taxis from diesel powered to LPG powered. But taxis are not the only polluters of the air we breathe, and as such Mr Tien said he has told the government that it should extend the programme to cover the whole commercial fleet.