Professor Wong, distinguished guests, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,

I am honoured to be invited to officiate at the 5th Hong Kong International Cancer Congress today. I am also delighted to see so many eminent experts from Hong Kong and all over the world gathering here to share experiences and information on the latest developments in the fight against cancer.

Despite the best endeavours of colleagues here and elsewhere, cancer continues to be one of the leading causes of death in the Asia-Pacific region and many other parts of the developed world. We need to do all we can to encourage more research and foster collaborative efforts towards prevention, public education, detection, treatment, counselling, rehabilitation and, when all else fails, hospice care. This conference provides an excellent vehicle for the promotion of such collaboration and sharing of ideas.

Last year, at the opening of the 14th Asia Pacific Cancer Conference held in conjunction with the 4th Hong Kong International Cancer Congress, my predecessor as Chairman of the UGC, Mr Antony Leung, referred to the need to develop Hong Kong as a regional centre for health care and for education and research. I strongly echo those sentiments, which were again reflected in the recent Policy Address by our Chief Executive with particular reference to Chinese medicine.

Hong Kong is fortunate to be ideally situated to act as the meeting place between East and West. The bilingual population has the opportunity to learn, experience, and integrate the best of both worlds. As mentioned in the Chief Executive's Policy Address, Hong Kong has the potential to become an international centre for Chinese medicine and medical practitioners. The Government is also working on a regulatory structure for facilitating the use, trading and manufacture of Chinese medicine, and to recognise the professional status of Chinese medical practitioners.

Our universities have for some time been offering part-time courses in Chinese medicine to update both the knowledge and skills of practitioners. One of our universities has recently launched the full-time first degree course in Chinese medicine in Hong Kong and another university will launch a similar degree course in 1999. The UGC and Research Grants Council have been supporting research in Chinese medicine in our universities. Some of the research has already begun to bear fruit. I understand that the Chinese University of Hong Kong has in recent years conducted a number of research projects on the immunomodulation and antitumor activity of the culture filtrates of local edible mushrooms, using experiments on mice. These experiments have revealed that the mushrooms have both induced immune responses and exhibited cytotoxicity against tumor cell lines. With more research on the subject, I believe that this line of enquiry will shed more light on the effectiveness of Chinese herbs in fighting cancer. For our part, we will continue to support such research and encourage technology transfer from academia to industry.

The Government has recently announced that it plans to introduce legislative measures to regulate practice in Chinese medicine in 1999. We see great prospects for developing new educational and research programmes in Chinese medicine and medicinal products. For our part, the UGC supports the idea of developing a Chinese medicine research institute, as a joint endeavour among all parties concerned in Hong Kong. I stress that it should be a joint endeavour, because it will need to involve not just the universities and relevant Government authorities, but also the industry as well as commercial and charitable sponsors.

From initial discussions that we have already had with a number of the parties concerned, I would expect the institute to focus on both basic research and drug development, improvement in safety standards, etc and to facilitate collaboration with the industry in commercialising medicinal products. We shall continue to work closely with all interested parties to draw up a proposal for the setting up of the institute.

In this context, I see great opportunities ahead for developing new approaches to the treatment of diseases like cancer, through integrating the best of Western medicine and the best of Chinese medicine.

We sincerely hope that our researchers will be making new discoveries and achieving innovative breakthroughs in cancer research in the future to contribute to our joint efforts to fight the disease.

Meanwhile I congratulate the Medical Faculty of the University of Hong Kong and the Queen Mary Hospital of the Hospital Authority on jointly organising this 5th Hong Kong International Cancer Congress. The Congress has been an important annual event for the medical profession since it was first launched in 1994, not only for those in Hong Kong but also for colleagues from elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region and indeed further afield. The contributions of the Congress to the training and education of healthcare personnel, as well as treatment and care of cancer patients and cancer research are definitely remarkable.

Finally, I should like to thank the Organising Committee once again for inviting me to attend and have great pleasure in declaring the Congress open. I wish you all a very fruitful day of discussions.