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On January 1, 1997, Hong Kong will be moved from Part I to Part II of the list and put under the sub-category of "More Advanced Developing Countries and Territories". Six countries, namely: The Bahamas, Brunei, Kuwait, Qatar, Singapore and United Arab Emirates, were moved similarly on January 1, 1996.
Immigration from China provides a useful source of manpower supply which is conducive to raising the productive capacity and growth potential of our economy. While the increase in legal immigrants from China in recent years poses additional demand on the community's facilities and resources, the annual inflow of legal immigrants represents less than 1% of our population which is within Hong Kong's ability to cope.
End
Cross-subsidy in telephone services
Following is a question by the Hon Henry Tang Ying-yen and a written reply by the acting Secretary for Economic Services, Mr Leo Kwan, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):
Question:
The data provided by the Government show that under the existing flat-rate pricing scheme for telephone services, light users have been cross-subsidising heavy users in both residential and business telephone services. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a)
(b)
whether out-going long distance calls are incorporated in the relevant data on the monthly usage of residential and business lines; if so, what the usage pattern of out-going long distance call service is (ie. a breakdown of the percentages of customers according to long distance call time per month) in the residential and business sectors in the past year; if not, how the overall usage situation would be affected, and whether the amount of cross-subsidy on heavy users from light users. would vary, if the data on out-going long distance calls are incorporated;
of the proportion of long distance calls in the total out-going calls made by heavy users (i.e. those with an average call time of over 400 minutes per month), as well as the respective proportions of out-going long distance calls made by such users in the total long distance calls made locally in terms of call time and in terms of profits in the past year; and