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Speech by Mr. Allan CHIANG, the Postmaster General, at the Issuing Ceremony for Special Mini-pane of Heartwarming Stamps to feature "Congratulations to the Hong Kong Team on Winning the Silver Medal in the Men's Table Tennis Doubles at the 2004 Olympic Games"
Mr. FOK, Mr. KO, Mr. LI and friends from the sports scene and the media,
Good morning, welcome to the issuing ceremony of the Heartwarming Stamps featuring "Congratulations to the Hong Kong Team on Winning the Silver Medal in the Men's Table Tennis Doubles at the 2004 Olympic Games".
To promote sports development in the territory and show support to our Olympic delegation, we have issued "Sports" Special Stamps and "2004 Olympic Games" Stamp Sheetlet on 20 July and 13 August 2004 respectively. We are happy to see that members of the delegation lived up to our expectation and performed tremendously well in Athens. We are deeply impressed by our table tennis doubles players, Mr. KO and Mr. LI, who have won an historic silver medal for us, bringing glory to Hong Kong. On behalf of Hongkong Post, may I take this opportunity to congratulate you on your outstanding achievements in the Athens Games.
Hong Kong people are proud of your success. All of us are strongly encouraged because the medal you won for us is the first medal that Hong Kong athletes ever got in Olympics since reunification. We take pride in all other members of our athletics team as well. One could hardly forget your untiring quest to strive for new heights. Your can-do spirit has indeed helped promote sports development and sports business in local arena. As I said earlier at the issuing ceremony of "Sports" Special Stamps, success on the field is never the making of a single individual. It is about teamwork among members, training and strategy of coaches and leaders as well as collaborative efforts of various sport organisations. Apart from these, formulation of sport conducive policies by the government and support from the general public are equally important. In all, they are values that showcase Hong Kong's trademark characteristics of team spirit, hard work and resolute attitude.
"Linking people, Delivering business" is the purpose statement of Hongkong Post, the foundation on which all our initiatives rest. Through mail delivery and stamp issuance, we aspire to disseminate our caring culture. What we issued today is not just a congratulatory message on stamp for the brilliant performance of our delegation in the Olympic Games, but also an expression of our corporate goal to bring people together for it demonstrates our support to local sport community. Years of overseas training and contests abroad have deprived Mr. KO and Mr. LI much of their family time with parents. In a hope to let their parents know how much they are being cared for, we have prepared framed stamps as small gifts for them to hand in to their parents.
There are four impressive pictures on the mini-pane, capturing exciting moments of players in action, victory at hand, medals in grasp and glory of Hong Kong. I sincerely hope that not only could this set of stamps arouse public concern about sports development in Hong Kong but also encourage our athletes to press ahead with their mission for better results in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Thank you.