For Hong Kong people, there is still much to be desired in the work of the SAR government headed by Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa. But from an outside perspective, Tung's administration presents an example of "legal'', "systematic'' and "modern'' governance.

The praise came from four staff of Shanghai municipal government who had been in Hong Kong on a three-month exchange programme.

The four, three engineers and an economist, attended the Staff Exchange Programme between the two governments. They are due to return to Shanghai on January 19.

"The operation and planning activities of the government departments here follow the legal procedures very strictly," said Zhang Jiapin, vice-director with the Shanghai Water Conservation Bureau, during a meet-the-media session yesterday.

"I feel that full marks should be given to many aspects of the Hong Kong government,'' said Zhang, who had worked at Hong Kong's Water Supplies Department.

He particularly admired the high standards of drainage services and flood control in Hong Kong.

Zeng Yixiong, an engineer of the Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau, said he was impressed by his Hong Kong colleagues'serious attitude towards work.

Zeng has worked with Hong Kong's Environmental Protection Department during his stint, and got involved in the pollution control work on Hong Kong Island and in New Territories East during the past two months or so.

"My Hong Kong colleagues indeed live up to the long-held belief in the high quality of Hong Kong's civil service,'' he said.

Commenting on environmental protection in Hong Kong, Zeng said he was amazed by the government's ability to maintain the country parks that exist side by side with systematic urban planning.

"We knew that Hong Kong is a very prosperous city. But I soon realized that there is more to this than meets the eye. Hong Kong has many country parks and is doing extremely well on ecological protection.'' he said.

Song Wei, an engineer of the Shanghai Housing and Land Resources Administration, said his contact with the Housing Department here will kick-start close co-operation.

Hu Yingsheng, an economist who comes from the same department as Song, praised the Hong Kong government for its "people-centred"approach in planning urban developments and the well-linked up transportation network.

(HK Edition 01/15/2004 page1)