IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SINO-BRITISH JOINT DECLARATION
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be to the Joint Declaration. (Under paragraph 7(c) of Annex III, this annual limit may increased by agreement of the Land Commission.)
Under the terms of paragraph 6 of Annex III to the Joint Declaration, premium income obtained by the Hong Kong Government from land transactions shall, after deduction of the average cost of land production, be shared equally between the Hong Kong Govern- ment and the future Special Administrative Region Government. The average cost of land production is determined and adjusted by the Land Commission annually, and for the 1987-8 financial year, the agreed figure was $1,625 per square metre. The future SAR Government's share of premium income is held in a trust fund, called the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government Land Fund, established by the Chinese side of the Land Commission pursuant to agreement reached by both sides in the commission. The fund is managed by an Investment Committee, the membership of which includes prominent bankers in Hong Kong, as well as a monetary expert in the Hong Kong Government. To date, over $4,000 million, representing the future SAR Government's share of premium income for the period May 27, 1985 to September 30, 1987, has been transferred to the fund.
The Basic Law
Paragraph 3(12) of the Joint Declaration states that the basic policies of the People's Republic of China (PRC) regarding Hong Kong, and the elaboration of them in Annex I to the Joint Declaration, will be stipulated in a Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, by the National People's Congress of the PRC, and they will remain unchanged for 50 years. The Chinese Government, which is responsible for drafting the Basic Law, has appointed a 59-member drafting committee, called the Basic Law Drafting Committee (BLDC), which includes 23 members from Hong Kong. At its first meeting held in July 1985 in Peking, the drafting committee adopted a timetable which envisaged publishing a first draft for public consultation in early 1988 and, after repeated redrafting in the light of public comments, enactment of the Basic Law in 1990. Subsequently, the drafting committee held six plenary meetings; the sixth plenary meeting was held from December 12 to 16, 1987 in Guangzhou. Also at its first meeting, the BLDC approved the establishment of a committee to canvass views from members of the public in Hong Kong. Thus, the Basic Law Consultative Committee (BLCC) was formally inaugurated on December 18, 1985. It consisted of 180 members drawn from a wide cross-section of the community.
A great deal of progress has been made by the BLDC in the drafting of the Basic Law. It is expected that a 'discussion draft' of the Basic Law will be published in early 1988, as scheduled. Throughout the drafting process, Hong Kong people have taken a great interest in what goes into the Basic Law, and important issues have been debated in both the drafting committee and the consultative committee as well as publicly in the media.