Mrs Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor,
Carrie., JP.

Mrs Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, Carrie., JP
Permanent Secretary for Home Affairs Bureau, SAR, China

Mrs Carrie Lam joined the Hong Kong Government as an Administrative Officer upon graduation from the University of Hong Kong in 1980. Whilst in the government service, she attended a one-year Diploma Course in Development Studies in the University of Cambridge in 1981-82 and received a Fulbright Fellowship on attachment to a US federal agency for several months in 1988.
During her career, Mrs Lam has served in various bureaux and departments, covering subject matters in district administration, security, public finance and social services. In the 1990s, she spent almost seven years in the Finance Bureau involved in budgetary planning, expenditure control and the government's capital works programme. She was appointed the Director of Social Welfare in August 2000 managing a HK$30 billion welfare portfolio. Her three-year tenure as the Director of Social Welfare coincided with a period of high unemployment and severe fiscal deficit in Hong Kong, highlighting the need for ensuring the financial sustainability of a social security safety net for the disadvantaged. During the outbreak of SARS in Hong Kong in early 2003, Mrs Lam together with three other senior civil servants set up the We Care Education Fund, raising over HK$80 million to meet the long term education needs of children whose parents have died of SARS.