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(d) To co-operate with other Government departments concerned with food imports and exports to ensure departmental procedures do not conflict and that efficiency is maintained. In addition to place particular emphasis on the need to maintain proper health standards of foodstuffs destined for export.
(e) To plan the expansion of food inspection and sampling in line with advances in other countries.
Food Premises
To raise the standard of hygiene in all food premises by:
(a) enforcing compliance with the Public Health and Urban Services Ordinance, Cap. 132, and Subsidiary Legislation in so far as it relates to food premises;
(b) processing all applications for licences by a Central Licensing Unit to ensure that licences are granted as expeditiously as possible, and to further improve the licensing procedure whenever appropriate;
(c) working closely with the Housing Department and the Public Works Department, in improving the design of food premises in the new estates and housing projects; and
(d) taking such action as may be practicable to prevent the operation of illegal or unhygienic food premises and business.
Liquor Licensing
(a) To review the legislation relating to liquor licensing and the control of licensed premises, and to recommend appropriate amendments.
(b) To streamline the licensing procedure.
(c) To enforce the Dutiable Commodities (Liquor) Regulations 1970.
7. Hawkers
(a) To seek a gradual reduction in the number of hawkers as circumstances permit and as employment opportunities improve.
(b) To seek suitable sites for bazaars and to get hawkers off-street into bazaars and markets.
(c) To confine hawking to areas least objectionable or detrimental to the public interest.
(d) To put hawking under proper control, reduce to a minimum the nuisances created by hawking and to limit it to small scale business.
(e) To give established hawkers a legitimate status.
(f) To regard hawking as a business, disassociating it from social welfare.
(g) To recognize that, in times of difficult economic circumstances, hawking is capable of acting as a buffer against unemployment and that, in this light, implementation of the aims set out at (a) to (f) above can be modified by the Select Committee.
8. Libraries
(i) To maintain and further strengthen the existing bookstock for public use by acquiring about 71,000 volumes and to prepare in advance the bookstock for an additional branch library.
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(ii) To further strengthen the reference library services by:
(a) the acquisition of microfilms of local major English and Chinese newspapers;
(b) further specialization of the stock of the reference libraries at the City Hall and Yau Ma Tei libraries;
(c) intensifying co-operation with local and overseas libraries, particularly in inter-library loans and photocopy services,
(iii) To provide a mobile library service to Sham Shui Po and other districts in North Kowloon.
(iv) To review the plan for providing one library in each district.
(v) To intensify and keep under review extension activities (e.g. talks, organized library visits, competitions, story hours, publications of book lists, book exhibitions etc.) with the object of stimulating and promoting better usage of library facilities, particularly by young people.
(vi) To keep under continuous review services and facilities to achieve greater efficiency.
(vii) To provide expert advice to other libraries when required, and to encourage the establishment of new libraries by other organizations.
9. Markets and Abattoirs
(a) Markets
(i) To reprovision and/or modernise existing markets and to construct new markets with improved, modern facilities, to meet the changing needs of the urban areas.
(ii) To secure maximum efficiency in the management of markets by strengthening the Public Market By-laws whenever the need arises, and by developing a standard tenancy agreement, the provisions of which are enforceable and permit periodic reviews of rents.
(iii) To improve the standard of cleanliness and hygiene in all markets.
(iv) To impress on the Secretary for Housing the urgent need to arrive at an agreed policy whereby the Urban Council's health requirements would be strictly observed by all cooked food stalls, fresh provision shops and markets in existing and new housing estates.
(v) To carry out research into the retail marketing needs of the urban areas, examining in particular the changing pattern of consumer demand, the trend towards bulk delivery and distribution of market commodities, and the facilities provided by food hawkers and fresh provision shops, in order to obtain a basis for the efficient distribution, planning and design of modern market facilities.
(vi) To foster co-operation with market stallholders and Government departments in the planning and improvement of marketing facilities.
(b) Abattoirs
(i) To ensure that the abattoirs at Kennedy Town and Cheung Sha Wan are run in accordance with the highest practicable standards of hygiene and efficiency.
(ii) To carry out the further mechanization and expansion programme of the existing abattoirs and by-products plant as recommended by the Abattoirs Working Party with a view to minimizing labour costs and maximizing overall efficiency and productivity,
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