Making a break with tradition
UNLIKE his predecessors, Mr Tsang occasionally broke with tradition.
After reading most of the 45-page budget speech in English, Mr Tsang switched to Cantonese for the last three pages.
His aides said Mr Tsang was keen to balance the need to speak in an international language along with the most common one in the territory.
Mr Tsang departed from the way his predecessor, Sir Hamish Macleod, structured the Budget.
Mr Tsang divided it into three parts. The first was devoted to past trends and development, the second dealt with the performance of the economy and its prospects, and the last looked to the future.
'I want to make the Budget more accessible. I want to make it easier for the community, as well as for [Legco], to get at the facts, the assumptions and policy proposals which it contains,' he said.
Mr Tsang broke with tradition again by ending with the medium range forecast. In the past, it was followed by the summing up.
This time, he dealt with the forecast and the need to boost the service sector before concluding. -
