Thousands of people are set to walk past the Legislative Council (LegCo) on Saturday's New Year Day in a show of solidarity for preservation of a stable economic environment in the SAR.

Police are understood to be preparing for a likely turnout of 40,000 people who will also encircle the business heart of Central where the regional headquarters of HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank and major landmarks are situated.

The numbers are participating in a demonstration organized by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Industry Staff Union and the newly formed Concern Group of Hong Kong's Free and Stable Economy in the wake of the aborted listing of the Link Real Estate Investment Trusts (the Link).

A founder of the concern group, George Lam, said they were worried about politicians getting more radical to make use of public issues to attack and to weaken the government that, he added, would only undermine the general economic environment.

"Since 1997, how much have the lawmakers done in making positive policy suggestions apart from criticizing government policies? The Link saga was only the tip of an iceberg. There are also the attacks on the West Kowloon Project and others," Lam said.

"But ironically, Hong Kong's future is also dependent on them as well as the public. We are opposed to politicians gaining personal gain by sacrificing the public interest. We hope that matters of public interest are not politicized any more," he said.

Another founder of the concern group, Frederick Yu, pointed out that had there not been repeated incidents of politicians playing foul with public interests, the Link incident alone would not have been enough to cause them to close ranks to organize the march.

Chairman of the staff union, David Wong, said the protest was organized in response to worries expressed by members of the industry and investors over the political bickering in society that he feared would harm Hong Kong's status as an important international finance centre.

Tsui Sai-cheung, general secretary of the staff union, said there was a symbolic meaning with the participants marching by the LegCo building.

"We want to tell them, the legislators, that no matter who they are, we want them to listen to us, the ordinary citizens, that we are opposed to any act by politicians to make the SAR chaotic," Tsui said.

They believe that participants will demonstrate peacefully, saying about 100 volunteers and union members have signed up to form the picket line to maintain order. Should anything nasty happen, he said they would leave them to the police.

But Yu said he was confident that the demonstration would be incident free.

The organizers refused to name any individual politicians they thought were undermining Hong Kong's well being.

"Let bygones be bygones. We hope that politicians can work with the government for a better future for us," Lam said.

On Tuesday, the Democratic Party and its allied groups announced a march on Saturday afternoon to condemn the government's "conspiring" with businessmen as well as to demand universal suffrage in 2007 and 2008.

(China Daily HK Edition December 30, 2004)