Calendar of Events
2014
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WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement. The agreement sets out binding obligations for all WTO members to improve and harmonise their import-export and customs procedures and aims to benefit the world economy by removing inefficiencies in the movement of goods.
Bailiffs assist the plaintiff in a civil case to enforce an interim injunction order by removing protest barricades on the roads around Admiralty and police arrest 249 people who refuse to leave.
The remaining roads blocked by protesters in Causeway Bay are cleared by the police, 79 days after the unlawful protests began.
The government announces its new Long Term Housing Strategy, the first since 1998. It includes building more public rental housing units, providing more subsidised sale flats and stabilising the residential property market through steady land supply and appropriate demand management measures.
An agreement is signed under the framework of the Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement to achieve basic liberalisation of trade in services between Guangdong and Hong Kong. The Mainland opens up 153 services trade sub-sectors in Guangdong to the Hong Kong services industry, accounting for 95.6 per cent of all services trade sub-sectors.
The Employment (Amendment) Bill 2014 is passed. The new law will provide three- day paternity leave to eligible male employees with pay at four-fifths of their average daily wages and the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin- chung, says it marks a milestone in promoting family-friendly employment practice. Former Chief Secretary for Administration Mr Rafael Hui is sentenced to a total imprisonment term of seven and a half years at the Court of First Instance for one count of conspiracy to offer an advantage to a public servant, one count of conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office and three counts of misconduct in public office involving payments, unsecured loans and flat rental fees totalling over $25 million. Three businessmen are also convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office and two of them convicted of one count of conspiracy to offer an advantage to a public servant. They are variously sentenced to imprisonment terms of five and six years.
The MTR West Island Line connecting Sheung Wan to Kennedy Town opens.
The government announces the closure of Cheung Sha Wan Poultry Temporary Wholesale Poultry Market after a number of samples from a consignment of imported live chickens tested positive in H7 avian influenza.
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