Talking points

Environment Secretary Wong Kam-sing will appear at the Legislative Council's public works subcommittee today to push ahead with two controversial waste infrastructure plans. The subcommittee is one of the hurdles the minister will have to overcome before the HK$20 billion funding requests for the Tseung Kwan O landfill and waste incinerator at Shek Kwu Chau can be put forward for a vote at the Finance Committee at a later stage.

Economic growth figures released today will offer the clearest indication yet of whether China's economy will dodge a "hard landing". Sluggish industrial demand and faltering exports may have cooled first-quarter economic growth to 7.3 per cent from a year earlier, according to some economists. That would be the weakest growth since the global financial crisis and below the official target of about 7.5 per cent for this year. In the fourth quarter of last year, gross domestic product grew 7.7 per cent.