A proposal to reduce Urban Council expenses by ending the use of English in its bilingual monthly magazine has been rejected.
The council's public relations sub-committee said City News, which claims a readership of almost half a million from a print run of 95,000, should be redesigned and printed in Chinese only.
But members of the council's administration select committee said many readers were Westernised Chinese or tourists picking up the free magazine in hotel lobbies.
Sub-committee member Ada Wong Ying-kay defended the proposal, saying bilingual magazines were out of date and expensive to run.
'There was a survey done and most of the respondents said they referred to the cultural programmes in the magazine,' Ms Wong said.
'We decided the magazine should be in Chinese as there are already enough pamphlets and other magazines containing this information.' She said it would be cheaper to print pamphlets for English-speakers rather than spend resources translating the publication.
