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Mrs Lau reminded those who had not yet applied for the permits and licences to do so as soon as possible.

"We will continue to publicise the Ordinance after it has come into effect and will seek to enhance residents' awareness of the importance of security work through public education," she said.

End

More user-friendly environment for business

The Secretary for the Treasury, Mr K C Kwong said today (Friday) that the Government has taken further steps forward in creating a more user-friendly environment for business.

"We are focusing more on the business community's specific needs in order to enable this sector to remain competitive and continue to play its major role in generating the wealth that sustains the community as a whole," he said.

In his presentation to members of the Financial Executive Institute, Mr Kwong said the objectives of the Government's helping the business programme were to cut red tape, to eliminate over-regulation and unnecessary bureaucracy, to reduce the cost of compliance and enforcement, to transfer services out of the public sector to the business sector and to improve existing services or introduce new services.

He told the gathering that the Task Force on Helping Business which was formed in March and chaired by himself was making progress on various fronts.

"The Task Force is co-ordinating a series of pilot studies with the aim of testing different types of improvements on a service-wide, departmental and a project basis," he said.

Outlining the studies at the audio visual presentation, Mr Kwong said: "A strong study team has been formed within the Marine Department to look into its regulatory activities with the objectives of cutting red-tape and improving efficiency.

"Likewise, the Trade Department's study team is examining various licensing procedures to see if there are any unnecessary bureaucracy which can be eliminated.

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