- 13.
A Member suggested that we should consider allowing longer renewal periods. for certain licences, or indeed completely doing away with them where appropriate. This is a helpful suggestion. I will certainly ask my colleagues to examine the idea in the context of their fee reviews and take it forward as far as practicable.
Some members have expressed the view that the Administration, ought to be flexible in bringing fees and charges to the full cost recovery level. Let me assure Members that, in determining fee levels, we always take public acceptability and affordability into consideration. We do not apply the full cost recovery principle rigidly, and indeed there are many cases in which we are recovering full costs by phases.
There has been a call on the Administration to limit the fee increase this year to the rate of inflation. I would like to make it clear that the majority of our fee revisions are in line with inflation. There may be occasions where the fee increases need to be higher than inflation, for example where we are phasing in full cost recovery or where operating costs have increased substantially as a result of service improvements. Nonetheless, I can assure Members that whenever the revisions would be too high in percentage or dollar terms, we will carefully consider phasing them in over a reasonable period.
Helping Business
Last but not least, I would like to elaborate on the Financial Secretary's initiative to make the Government more user-friendly for business. I would like to thank Members who spoke on the subject for their support of our Helping Business initiative. Under my chairmanship, the newly formed Task Force on Helping Business has already met twice in the past month. We are determined to ensure that the Government will play a positive and proactive role in making Hong Kong a place for business to thrive. Our focus will be on cutting red-tape (including doing away with unnecessary licences and permits), streamlining regulatory activities and nurturing a pro-business Government culture and practice.
In the first phase of our programme of work, we plan to undertake several pilot projects. We will examine the present methods of payment and collection by Government for business transactions, the possibility of placing Government forms on the Internet, the feasibility of establishing a one-stop business licence information centre and the ways and means of improving the processing of land exchanges, lease modifications and the related premium assessment and appeal procedures. We will also examine if we could provide an up-to-date Hong Kong Background Facts service to the business sector. In addition, there will be two departmental studies of the regulatory activities of the Marine Department and the Trade Department.