Good public order is essential for maintaining Hong Kong as an international financial centre, the Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, Professor K C Chan, said on September 26 when inspecting a passing-out parade of the Police College.

"Our crime rate is lower than many other metropolitan cities. It reflects that Hong Kong is one of the safest cities in the world, which is attributable to the ceaseless efforts of our police officers to prevent and combat crimes every day," he added.

He pointed out that with rapid changes in social environment and advances in technology, commercial and technology crimes had brought tough challenges to Police which had also devoted a large amount of resources to fighting such crimes with a view to maintaining a safe and stable business environment in Hong Kong.

In addition, Police attached great importance to financial investigation to combat local and transnational crimes.

"The Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering, an inter-governmental organisation, highly praised our Police Force's commitment to combatting money laundering, which has brought remarkably successful prosecutions.

"These achievements have fully demonstrated Police's contributions in maintaining Hong Kong as an international financial centre," Professor Chan said.

While the public had very high expectations of the performance and conduct of police officers, he was confident that the Force, supported by a pool of well-trained and professional officers who were highly self-motivated and devoted to duty, would provide quality services to the community and were able to deal with the many challenges lying ahead.

He encouraged the graduates to uphold their integrity and honesty, and apply flexibly the knowledge and skills they had learned to their work so as to contribute to the stability of Hong Kong.

On parade were a total of 21 probationary inspectors and 205 recruit constables.

Professor Chan offers some words of encouragement to officers after the passing-out parade