Hong Kong's rankings in "government efficiency" and "business efficiency" both stayed at the top globally, making the city the world's most competitive economy, according to the International Institute for Management Development World Competitiveness Yearbook 2017. Provided to China Daily

Hong Kong's civil service will continue to work efficiently and professionally to maintain the city's global competitiveness and ensure effective governance, Joshua Law Chi-kong, the incoming secretary for the civil service, said in a recent interview.

The SAR government will keep boosting civil servants' morale to better serve Hong Kong people, he said.

Hong Kong's civil service implements national policies and also devises and carries out city-level policies. Chief Executive-designate Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor recently said there are many talented people who are strongly committed to their work in the civil service.

Lam and the principal officials of the fifth-term administration of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, including Law, will be sworn into office on Saturday.

There are about 170,000 civil servants in Hong Kong, a city with a population of 7.34 million.

The vision of the SAR government's Civil Service Bureau is to "foster a dynamic, visionary and knowledge-based civil service". Professionalism is highly valued. For example, civil employees are required to master at least two languages, Chinese and English. When sitting at a news conference, government representatives can answer questions in Mandarin, Cantonese and English, fluently.

Hong Kong is also known for its clean government.

No matter the sum of bribes taken, be it HK$100, or HK$10,000 or HK$1 million, it is an offense, said Tony Kwok Man-wai, former deputy commissioner and head of operations at the Independent Commission Against Corruption, during an interview about the civil service's sense of discipline.

A recent survey showed the HKSAR Government is local university students' third most sought-after employer, following Google and Ernst & Young, an accounting firm based in London. The survey was conducted by Universum Global, an employer-branding company based in Sweden.

Hong Kong was ranked the world's most competitive economy for the second consecutive year, according to the International Institute for Management Development World Competitiveness Yearbook 2017.

The report assessed each economy on four competitiveness factors - "economic performance", "government efficiency", "business efficiency" and "infrastructure". Hong Kong's rankings in "government efficiency" and "business efficiency" both stayed at the top globally.

(HK Edition 06/28/2017 page4)