At last, two good ideas. After all the soul-searching and self-praise which has emanated from our government in almost equal measure, it is refreshing to see a positive and creative suggestion in Timothy Fok Tsun-ting's proposal for a major new sports and entertainment complex at the Kai Tak site ('Build super stadium at Kai Tak, says Olympic chief', Sunday Morning Post, May 11). The tax rebate programme is a joke in terms of 'getting our economy back on its feet'. We need tourists, we need business customers and we need investors - all they need is confidence. Short-term confidence will come from getting people out of their face-masks, from showing off a bright and clean environment, not from trying to talk up or down certain aspects of the situation. Let the short-term take care of itself by tackling the cleanliness issues and let the world judge. Then proceed on essentially long-term city-building efforts. I commend for immediate implementation the sports complex proposal and the plan for a communicable disease and immunology centre. One football match between Manchester United and Real Madrid in an 80,000-seat stadium could bring more visitors and more revenue than weeks of penny-pinching Disney tourists, let alone the free publicity around the world. Mr Fok is right: a baseball game with just one hit out of the arena into the harbour (by then blue again, of course) would be worth 50 years of 'City of Life' campaigns, never mind one image of Pavarotti or Mick Jagger with the Hong Kong skyline behind. A solid commitment from Hong Kong business to sponsor events is the catalyst to get this one going - plus a preparedness to fight for the Asian Games until we get them. We have the opportunity to be the disease research centre for North Asia if we wish to grab it. The right nexus of university research and entrepreneurial business which produced Silicon Valley or the health industry around Boston could happen here (note, not 'be created' but 'happen'). We need to establish the right institutions to concentrate, support and grow the best talent from Hong Kong (which is already respected around the world) and attract more from other places. Do that and ensure there are the opportunities for commercialisation, and it could happen. Our private hospitals are too small to do it on their own and the public hospitals too under-funded and struggling to meet the demands of the community. Our bio and medical industries lack an institutional base to provide the research incentive - but with the right catalyst it could happen. We are right next to the world's 'petri dish' (as an international publication put it) while Chinese medicine is already focused on immune support, so it should not be a big step to turn that into a supporting science. The Jockey Club has promised the seed capital, so what is holding us back? Rather than relying on our government to come up with the answers, what about a more grassroots effort? Will the much flaunted 'can do' spirit of Hong Kong rise to the challenge or will we wait until Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa's troops tell us what to do? Did Jardines, Swire, Li Ka-shing or C.Y. Tung wait until the government told them what to do? EDWIN McAULEY, Hong Lok Yuen