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Dear Member, I am honoured to have been elected as your new Chairman and I will dedicate myself to making the Chamber useful to you. As I mentioned in this month’s Bulletin, our most immediate task is to manage the effects on our economy and society of SARS, while at the same time not forgetting the important medium-term goal of putting Hong Kong’s economy on a sound footing by eliminating the budget deficit. But, first things first, we have concentrated our efforts recently in making proposals to overcome the SARS crisis. In mid-April, we asked our members for their views on how the Government should respond to the SARS situation and we were very pleased at the enthusiastic response we received. This allowed the Chamber secretariat quickly to come up with a number of proposed measures which were deliberated by our General Committee and then submitted to Government. I am happy that many of these measures were then adopted by Government and formed the basis of the relief package. We also addressed the need to improve communication about the actual situation in Hong Kong and to plan, at the right time, for a relaunch of Hong Kong to our international visitors and customers. Again the Chamber leadership, together with the Chamber’s staff, have been mapping out some precise proposals for this relaunch campaign, focusing on appropriate short, medium and long term measures. It is important to time well this kind of campaign to ensure it has the right impact with its audience. I am pleased to say that, even though we have had to cancel some Chamber programs due to visitors not being able to come to Hong Kong, for those programs that have continued we have had good attendance. Our members showed their strong support with active participation at our recent AGM, at various lunch time meetings and at our regular networking Happy Hour. On our side, recognizing the difficulties that many of our members are facing at this time, the Chamber is offering reduced fees for various events and services. We also hope that our free web service as part of the SARS Relief Program will be useful to you for your product promotion at the time when business travel has become more difficult for some. In order for us to listen better to your needs and to make an assessment of the present level of services and programs that the Chamber is offering, we will be sending out a survey to members late next month. I hope you will find time to reply to that and let us have your input so that we can make any necessary adjustments. I thank you for your trust in me as your Chairman. I look forward to working with our strong and experienced Chairman’s Committee and General Committee, as well as the capable Chamber staff, to make sure that your wishes are well represented in the community and to Government so that we can play an important role in resolving successfully the challenges which Hong Kong now faces. Regards, Anthony Nightingale Chairman