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As usual, I shall largely confine my remarks to matters within the present scope of the Urban Council and that of the Select Committees on which I am serving. Therefore, I shall talk about hawkers, markets, food and food premises and environmental hygiene. Mr. BERNACCHI has never ceased to remind us that we can talk on anything under the sun at the Annual Debate by convention and in that light I shall probably talk about barber shops, (Laughter), not so much from the point of view of physical hygiene as from that of moral hygiene, and the case of firecrackers.
Hawkers:
I have said a great deal about hawkers during the past years and I would have liked to speak again at length on this subject. Unfortunately I am precluded from so doing.
The situation, as it stands today, is that the Council has during much of this year been considering afresh ways and means of solving the problem presented by the presence of so many thousands of hawkers in the urban area, and has reached provisional agreement on a plan to be followed. I myself abstained from voting for the plan because I have reservations about some aspects of it. What those aspects are I am not at liberty to say as the plan is still a confidential document, and is at present being studied by Government departments concerned, who have been asked for their comments. I can only repeat today that I have reservations about what it is proposed to do. When this Council considers the matter again, I shall have a new suggestion to put forward for consideration, apart from reiterating my former reservations.
Markets:
As I have said in previous years the ultimate solution to hawker problems is to have them evolved into stall-holders in markets. If I were to reiterate the statement that markets are the most economical institution for the purchase of foodstuffs by the housewives of Hong Kong, you may be bored. But it can be proven both by theory and practice that it is so. We must think in terms of the 90% of the people of Hong Kong who live on fish, vegetables, poultry and/or meat, and not in terms of the small percentage of people who can afford to go to the so-called "super markets" where frozen food and other foodstuffs are bought at higher prices.
The Market Committee has made a modest advance in the market programme and I think one market may be completed and one re-constructed in a year, 1967.
In the long run I hope this Council can prevail upon Government to embark on a large scale market programme which would cater for the needs of all the districts. This may well give Hong Kong a boost in the building trade when it is very needed and to bring about a return to local prosperity. It is also to be borne in mind that markets are revenue-producing and therefore self-amortizing. In general, the ages of the older markets are as follows:-
Shau Kei Wan Market Completed in 1872 94 Shek Tong Tsui Market 1875 91 Western Market, North Block 1906 60 1907 59 1912 54 53 Sai Wan Ho Market 1858 (Reconstructed 1913) 53 Aberdeen Market 1918 48 Western Market, South Block Sham Shui Po MarketNow that the Department and the Council have passed the period of dancing the Samba on the market programme, that is, one step forward and two steps backward, we will work out a more progressive programme. In other words, we should try to step up the priorities of the market programme and market reconstruction and increase the tempo from Andante to Prontissimo.
Food and Food Premises:
This Council must press on with urgency for the early establishment of the Food Certification Branch for comprehensive health certificates for food for export. This Council is the proper Authority for the food and health hygiene of all food products. In spite of the fact that there are cases, the extent of food poisoning incidence is very low in Hong Kong owing to the efficacy of our Medical and Health Officers.
Even in the United States, the Food Administration recently proposed the recall of a famous Company's stock of powdered milk because micro-biologists found salmonella bacteria in their samples. Hong Kong must set a high standard for their food products and we must not have a repetition of the ice balls and pink elephant cases.
The present sets of regulations concerning the application for food and food premises are not presented in logical order and are confusing. This has resulted in applications being held up by being sent to the Fire Services Department and then again to the Building Authority and again by our own regulations which have sprung up piecemeal.
As a result, some applications take months to approve, being bogged down by mere technicalities. The Food and Food Premises Committee is now re-editing all the licensing conditions and is preparing to issue a new set of regulations arranged in logical order and clear language to be available in both English and Chinese so that applicants will know exactly how they stand. Several meetings have been held and we hope to complete the job by the beginning of 1967. In this respect I must
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