SENIOR civil servant Christine Chow Kwan-tai - the third to take early retirement from the Government in recent months - yesterday said she was going for personal reasons.
Ms Chow, the City and New Territories Administration's regional secretary (Hong Kong and Kowloon), is emigrating and although she declined to say where, it is understood she is going to Canada to join her family.
She denied her retirement was linked to the Sino-British row over political reform.
''I do not have much to do with that aspect [the constitutional row] and my retirement is due to personal reasons,'' she said.
''I have been working in the civil service nearly 28 years and it is the right time for me to retire.'' Ms Chow, who will be 50 in September, follows former Secretary for Education and Manpower John Chan Cho-chak and former Secretary for Transport Yeung Kai-yin in leaving the civil service early.
Mr Chan and Mr Yeung joined the private sector.
