19.
"Delincation of the nine new functional constituencies will be based on the broad industrial sectors under the Hong Kong Standard Industrial Classification," he said.
"Our workforce will be grouped according to the major activities of the establishments in which they work. The choice of a particular functional constituency for an employee is dependent on the main line of business of his employer.
"For example, a driver who works for a manufacturing factory should register in the Manufacturing Functional Constituency. Similarly, a driver who works in an import/export firm should register with the Import and Export Functional Constituency.
"The drivers will not be registered under the Transport and Communication Functional Constituency in these two examples," he explained.
Citing another new functional constituency, the Hotels and Catering Functional Constituency, as example, Mr Ng said it would cover the 220,000 employees in the hotel and catering sector, be they managers, waiters, chefs or cleaning staff who are working in hotels, restaurants, fast-food outlets or pubs.
Mr Ng said the Boundary and Election Commission would launch a large-scale voter registration exercise in January. Eligible voters will have until June 1 next year to sign up. The Commission has also come up with a method that will make registration easy for the 2.5 million people already on the General Electoral Roll.
"To begin with, the Commission will ask all employers to provide the name and identity card numbers of their employees, as well as confirmation about their main line `· of business for the purpose of classifying their employees," he said.
"After receiving the information the Registration and Electoral Office will check whether the employees are on the General Electoral Roll and if so, allocate a functional constituency to them according to the employer's main line of business.
"A notification with the functional constituency identified will be sent to the employees informing them that they will be so registered if they have no objection," he said.
Mr Ng gave an assurance that an employee who received a notification would be given the opportunity to declare any change in his circumstances, for example change of employer, or to make a choice of his functional constituency by completing a new application form should he be eligible for registration in more than one functional constituency.
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