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Mr Kwong said the safety measures were aimed at maintaining an improving trend until the safety targets had been reached. These safety measures included:
amending the existing regulations to tighten the control of two main high risk areas, namely work at height and in confined spaces;
introducing new legislation to set up safety management system and periodic safety audit under the Factories and Industrial Undertaking Ordinance;
introducing new Safety and Health at Work Regulation to set out specific standards for the working environment;
stepping up inspections and prosecution actions by the Labour Department, and seeking Attorney General's review on any inadequate penalty for breach of industrial safety requirement;
exploring the possibility of tightening the rules on suspending those contractors with unsatisfactory industrial safety record from tendering government works contracts; and
setting up a "Score Card" system to monitor the contractors' safety performance.
Mr Kwong said the joint efforts of all parties concerned had produced positive results and an improving trend was now fairly discernible.
The fatal and non-fatal accident rates for ACP contracts in 1996 were 0.42 fatalities per thousand workers per year and 59 accidents per thousand workers per year, which were respectively 33 per cent and nine per cent lower than those in 1995.
"The improvements were achieved despite an increase of about 50 per cent in labour force and the rates compare favourably with the overall construction industry figures which were 0.95 and 233 respectively in 1995," he said.
Mr Kwong said that within the last four years, the Government had introduced further measures to enhance safety for ACP and non-ACP projects. These measures included:
more safety supervisory staff assigned by the Works Agents to strengthen monitoring of contractors' activities;
training courses on construction safety legislation jointly organised by the Works Branch and the Labour Department to Works Departments' staff;