The Leaders of Six Religions in Hong Kong sincerely extend their New Year best wishes to everyone in Hong Kong and earnestly pray for heaven's abundant blessings on Hong Kong as people and government join hands in a spirit of understanding and perseverance to work for a free and congenial society.

The Leaders of Six Religions in Hong Kong seek to call attention to the following areas for making concerted efforts in the New Year:

1. The year 2002 is International Ecotourism Year. We urge the nurturing of spiritual wholeness as we labour to save and protect our physical environment and as we strive to live in merciful love for all mankind, to refrain from killings and wars and to build a world in which peace prevails.
2. We encourage our government to exhibit compassion in these times of economic downturn, high unemployment and disquieting anxiety, and to take concrete measures, such as creating new job opportunities, stabilising public service charges, etc., to ease the difficulties experienced by the jobless, the poor and the needy, and thereby re-enkindle their confidence and re-energise them to help themselves and to contribute towards the common goal of a stable and prosperous society.
3. We invite the people of Hong Kong to persevere in time of difficulty and hardship. We pray that our people will acquire wisdom to appreciate and face the challenges in daily living, generosity to be charitable and mutually supportive and resilience to create in confidence and hope a brighter and better tomorrow for all.
4. We seek to remind our education authorities of the need to guide the education of our young people with an emphasis on the fostering of their sound moral development based on the fine values and traditions in Chinese civilization. We thus hope to instil into our students a sense of direction in life, an eagerness to learn and to share knowledge and a keen sense of shame and honour to steer them in an information-technology dominant society and to help them rise above the degrading scramble for solely materialistic gains.
5. We appeal to our mass media to appreciate their impact on our children and youth, and to exercise prudence in their reporting and communication. We urge our government to strengthen legislation and oversight to fight against child pornography. We also entreat all parents and adults to set inspiring examples to influence the healthy and positive development of our children.

We are blessed by another New Year and the Leaders of Six Religions in Hong Kong earnestly beseech our government to do its best to lighten the burden of our people, to reinforce the education of our next generation, to be mindful of reporting by the mass media and to promote the spiritual well-being of our people. By so doing, our government will fulfil its mission to serve and to bring about a society in which our people will live in happiness, love, hope and joy.