Mr Raymond YOUNG, JP, Former Permanent Secretary for Home Affairs
Mr Raymond YOUNG, JP stated that The Hong Kong Jockey Club and Dance Fund (the Fund) had made remarkable contributions to the development of arts and culture in Hong Kong. Established 30 years ago, the Fund has awarded so far more than 200 scholarships to outstanding young musicians and dancers, totalling over $41 million. Upon their return, scholarship awardees took up leading roles in the arts sector and actively involved in work relating to local music and dance. Many of them have become celebrated artists.
According to Mr YOUNG, the Home Affairs Bureau (HAB), as the Custodian Trustee of the Fund, had been providing tremendous support to the work of the Fund and had set up the Board of Trustees (the Board). The HAB would keep working closely with the Board to support the development of local arts talent.
Mr YOUNG thanked the Hong Kong Jockey Club for providing resources to train music and dance talent. He also expressed gratitude for the efforts and contributions made by all previous and existing chairmen and members of the Board, as well as the rigorous assessment made by and professional advice from members of the Audition Panels.
He emphasised that the government had been committed to promoting Hong Kong as an art and cultural metropolis through training of talents, programmes upgrading and audience building. The Fund has helped nurture a number of local art talent and successfully promoted the development of arts in Hong Kong.
The provision of New Senior Secondary Curriculum has facilitated the youth to have a greater exposure to the arts and culture. The government has also provided funding for the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts to train those talented people in drama, music and dance, and will continue to strengthen the support to small and medium-sized art groups and artists. Every year, the government's expenditure on the arts and culture is estimated to be over $3 billion. Furthermore, the government has already injected an amount of $3 billion to the arts portion of the Arts and Sport Development Fund. All investment return will be allocated to provide continuous support to the career development of arts practitioners.
Mr YOUNG encouraged young people with excellent potential in music or dance to apply for the scholarship under the Fund so as to pursue further education and training in world renowned institutions. He said that Hong Kong was entering a blooming period of art development. The government had been proactively preparing for the development of the West Kowloon Cultural District where a number of world-class performance venues would be constructed and completed one by one, thus facilitating young artists to reveal their potential and play to their strengths.