Q Should the import duty on wine be reduced?
It seemed incongruous that the former financial secretary, in his budget address of 2002, declared the government was to make Hong Kong the 'culinary capital of Asia' and in the next breath increased wine duty by 20 per cent. The statements are not compatible. The time is ripe to refocus on the culinary capital aspect, as wine is an inherent part of good dining.
Garry Coley, Sham Tseng
Your headline item was a welcome acknowledgement that this government needs pressuring into ending this gross anomaly of an 80 per cent wine duty in a city that prides itself on its 'free port' image. The government's own consultation document is quite open in declaring its bias in favour of the status quo - 'The Administration's Position: Duty Should be Retained'.
This seems typical of this government's attitude on consulting the public and the civil service's self-serving policy.
Why self-serving? Because one significant factor in comparing the relative costs of by-value versus by-volume duty systems is the multi-tiered branch of the customs and excise department whose function it is to calculate the 'value' of the thousands of different wines imported.