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take effect on January 1, 2005. The Government will continue to consult the industry on further liberalisation of trade in IT-related services in the next round of CEPA discussions between Hong Kong and the Mainland.
E-government
E-government is an integral component of the Government's overall IT strategy. Building on the solid foundation laid down in the past few years, Hong Kong has launched the next wave of e-government under the 2004 Digital 21 Strategy. The Government will deepen the e-government programme to create more visible value for its customers and transform government business and culture.
The Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) was established in July 2004 to provide a stronger and more visible leadership within the Government to drive the development of e-government among government bureaux and departments to implement changes in business processes. To provide sponsorship for the e-government programme at the most senior level, the E-government Steering Committee (EGSC), chaired by the Financial Secretary, was established in September 2004.
To drive forward the next wave of e-government development, the EGSC endorsed a new vision to use information technology to provide customer-centric services that promote an accessible, accountable and efficient government, and contribute to Hong Kong becoming a leading digital city.
The new vision seeks to deepen a commitment to 'Serving the Community' by highlighting the use of IT to provide integrated and customer-centric public services; promote business process re-engineering to improve service delivery and enhance efficiency and productivity; and promote a more pervasive e-environment to raise the e-literacy of the community and drive the adoption of e-commerce and e-business.
Under this vision, the next wave of e-government programmes will focus more sharply on service quality and effectiveness, encourage the adoption of customer relationship management to enhance user-friendliness of services, identify and migrate customers to the most customer-desired and cost-effective channel of service delivery, and facilitate the joining-up of bureaux and departments to provide integrated and one-stop e-services in a customer-oriented manner. Key initiatives include e-procurement, new strategies for electronic service delivery, customer relationship management, channel management and measuring the benefits of e-government initiatives.
Major e-government projects undertaken in 2004 that demonstrate the focus under the vision:
(a) The ESD Scheme
The ESD Scheme provides a one-stop portal (www.esd.gov.hk) to deliver integrated public and commercial services in a customer-centric way. As at late 2004, the ESD portal provided some 200 online public services from over 50 government departments/public agencies. Its service scope has been broadened and service quality enhanced as follows: