Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor (third left) holds an online engagement session with Hong Kong deputies to the National People's Congress via video conferencing on Feb 8, 2021. (PHOTO /HKSAR GOVERNMENT)

HONG KONG - Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor held an engagement session with Hong Kong deputies to the National People's Congress (NPC) via video conferencing on Monday.

In a statement issued on Monday night, the government said Lam exchanged views with the deputies on how to better integrate Hong Kong into the overall development of the nation before they attend the meetings of the NPC and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Beijing next month. 

During the meeting, which lasted more than two hours, a total of 24 deputies expressed their views covering a wide range of topics, with many of them expressing the hope that travel between the two places can resume gradually sooner rather than later, helped by the vaccination program and continued virus testing. 

During the meeting, which lasted for more than two hours, a total of 24 deputies expressed their views covering a wide range of topics, with many of them expressing the hope that travel between the two places can resume gradually sooner rather than later, helped by the vaccination program and continued virus testing

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Chief Secretary for Administration Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Erick Tsang Kwok-wai, and Director of the Chief Executive's Office Chan Kwok-ki also attended the session.

Lam said that the NPC and its Standing Committee, as the highest organ of state power, helped solve the problems faced by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) at the constitutional level three times over the past year.

She said this is a testimony to the overall jurisdiction over the HKSAR exercised by the central authorities and the constitutional relationship between the central authorities and the HKSAR. 

Lam pointed out that 2021 is the opening year of the country's 14th Five-Year Plan and that Hong Kong will participate more actively in the nation's development, particularly in the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the Belt and Road Initiative and the new economic development pattern of domestic and international dual circulation. 

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She expressed the hope that Hong Kong deputies to the NPC would continue to express their views on the related work and lend staunch support to the HKSAR.

Lam will hold an engagement session with Hong Kong members of the CPPCC via video conferencing on Feb 9.