Page
The nine new
74. The Governor's proposals in October 1992 took account of these points. He proposed that for the 21 existing functional constituencies, the process of gradual development should be maintained by replacing all forms of corporate voting with individual voters. For the nine new functional constituencies, the Governor proposed that the simplest and fairest approach would be to define them so that they included the entire working population. On that basis, the Governor proposed nine constituencies based on the existing classification of industrial and commercial sectors.
75. The Chinese side's proposals, put forward in Round 6 of the negotiations, were that the composition and voting method of the existing 21 functional constituencies should remain precisely as they were in 1991, retaining the concept of corporate voting. They proposed that the nine new functional constituencies should be: the Hong Kong Chinese Enterprises Association; one extra seat for the existing Labour Functional Constituency; agriculture and fisheries; textiles and garments; Importers and Exporters Association; Kai Fong Welfare Associations; insurance; maritime; and sports. These constituencies should also be based on corporate voting.
76. In the view of Her Majesty's Government and the Hong Kong Government, the Chinese side's proposals would not deal adequately with the problems associated with corporate voting and very small constituencies the total franchise under their proposals would be about Constituencies $30,000 Some of their specific proposals also failed to meet the requirements for functional constituencies. Kai Fong Associations are
they were proposing I would add only about
20,000 voters to the franchise of 110,000 for the existing 21
constituencies,
not economic or professional groups of importance in the community.
They would in any case yield a tiny functional constituency since there are only some 60 such associations in Hong Kong. The proposal for a Chinese Enterprises Association constituency is inconsistent with Hong Kong's general approach of treating all investors and enterprises in the same way, regardless of national origin. It could be divisive to create constituencies on the basis of "national" interests rather than economic and professional groups. Many Chinese enterprises are already registered electors in other functional constituencies. The Chinese proposal for an Insurance Functional Constituency could only be formed by splitting the existing Financial Services constituency which is already very small. Given the small number of authorised insurers in Hong Kong (229) the insurance constituency by itself would be tiny. In later rounds, the Chinese side hinted that they might be prepared to be flexible on the number of corporate voters within a corporate voting system. But they were never specific. The British side's view remains that corporate voting should in all cases be replaced by individual voting, for the reasons given above.
77. The British side put forward revised proposals on the nine new functional constituencies in Round 9. These took account of the Chinese proposal that functional constituencies should all be based on organis- ations, and also built on six of the nine specific Chinese proposals. In subsequent rounds, the British side offered a number of further revisions to their list of functional constituencies, in a major effort to bridge the gap. After these amendments, the British side's nine proposed constituencies were:
Textiles and Garment
Wholesale/Retail and Import/Export
Manufacturing
22
رقي
3