Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah is appealing for ideas for his upcoming budget and already the newspapers are filled with the usual round of leaks. These strike an entertaining balance between solemn announcements that there won't be any sweeteners because this would be wrong in principle, and equally - or perhaps more - authoritative rumours about what the sweeteners will actually be.
Another subject dominating headlines is the perennial one of Hong Kong's air pollution. Throughout last year, we had regular and frequent warnings from the government itself that the air we breathe is hazardous to health. And the new chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong said in his inaugural address two weeks ago that 93 per cent of his members had named air pollution as their biggest concern. Rob Chipman is unusually well qualified to confirm the seriousness of the situation because he runs a large relocation firm.
Apart from pollution arising from power generation, which is being addressed via the new schemes of control, the biggest source of locally generated pollution is vehicular traffic. And the worst offenders are buses and heavy goods vehicles that meet only early European standards or even - incredibly - not even those.
Let's start with the bus companies, because our negotiating position is stronger as they operate under franchises granted by the government. Starting immediately, the government should introduce a programme to buy up all the old buses in phases and replace them with new ones that meet the highest environmental standards. The new buses would become part of the fleets of bus companies but the companies would not be allowed to earn a return on these assets at the price actually paid by the government.
So, there should be no adverse effect on shareholders' returns and no impact on fares. And all the haggling over who should make what contribution to the clean-up would be kicked into touch.
Now for the goods vehicles. Our hand is weaker here because there is no franchise, but we should keep in mind that our priority is to get these vehicles off the road if they cause serious pollution.