Handling emergencies and traffic management are two of the many areas where the capital could learn from Hong Kong as the city steps up preparations for the 2008 Olympic Games, Beijing Mayor Wang Qishan said yesterday.
At the opening of the ninth Beijing-Hong Kong Economic Co-operation Symposium in Beijing, Mr Wang said Hong Kong had adopted successful approaches that Beijing could learn from.
'Take the city's emergency management,' he said. 'I knew about bird 'plague' when I was a child ... but I only began to know about bird flu in 1998 when there was an outbreak in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong government successfully slaughtered many poultry.'
Mr Wang also said Hong Kong's traffic management was worth studying. 'When I worked in Guangdong, I [asked myself] ... why do motorists obey road rules when they pass into Hong Kong, and why do they suddenly break the rules once they pass back into Shenzhen?'
He said a greater show of police force could not be the answer because 'there are a greater number of Beijing police officers and they are all working hard'.
Mr Wang also said Beijing should learn from Hong Kong in terms of sharing information among governmental bureaus.