Legislative Council in Hong Kong. It will subsequently be
introduced by a Ministerial statement in Parliament as soon as
Parliament reconvenes.
4.
It is proposed that, in Hong Kong, the White Paper and the text
of the Governor's statement to the
to the Legislative Council should be
handled as follows:
(a) they will be distributed by the Hong Kong Government
to the
Urban Council and all District Boards with an invitation to these
bodies to make known their views;
(b) copies will be sent to
selected representative and
semi-representative bodies (including trade and industrial
associations, professional and academic bodies and other groups and organisations of standing in the community) with an invitation to
comment;
(c) the documents will be debated in the Legislative Council;
(d) the documents will also be given wide publicity through the mass
media. Copies will be made available in Government offices for free
distribution to the general public, who will be invited to comment;
Representative bodies and the general public will be free to
on any aspect of the draft Agreement.
comment
5. The views expressed in response to the invitation for Comments
will need to be carefully assessed and presented to Parliament.
There will also be indirect expressions of opinion (eg editorials
and letters to newspapers). These will continue to be monitored
and taken into account.
6. To this end, a special assessment office will be set up by the
Hong Kong Government. It will be separate from the ordinary
machinery of the Government, coming under the charge of a senior
official and reporting direct to the Governor. It will undertake
the task of collating, summarising, analysing and assessing
expressions of view received either directly or through other parts