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"Instead of allowing them to continue to contribute and to help generate profit for their companies, additional costs will be needed to support the unemployed persons and their families," Mrs Fok added.

Mrs Fok said both employers and employees should be concerned about AIDS because it affected the workforce both directly and indirectly by leading to unnecessary fear and anxiety.

Noting that HIV infection could not normally occur in a work place setting, Mrs Fok said the work place provided an ideal forum for conducting meaningful AIDS education to allay fear and arouse awareness.

The Governor, the Rt Hon Christopher Patten, is the patron of the Charter and Professor Jonathan Mann of Harvard AIDS Institute is the honourary adviser to the

Charter.

The Charter is a new initiative launched by the Department of Health and the Lions Clubs International, District 303 - Hong Kong and Macau. The main objectives are to enhance AIDS awareness and to encourage adoption of non-discriminatory policy in the workplace.

The organising committee of the Charter has sent out invitation letters to 2,000 companies and organisations in the territory after the launching.

Any companies or organisations interested in the Charter programme are welcome to enquire on tel 780 8622.

End/Thursday, December 8, 1994

SCA speaks on functional constituency elections

The Secretary for Constitutional Affairs, Mr Nicholas Ng, this (Thursday) evening explained next year's Legco functional constituency elections and the registration of voters for the nine new functional constituencies.

In a speech to the Association of Restaurant Managers' annual dinner, Mr Ng said of the 30 Legco seats to be elected from the functional constituencies, 21 would be returned by the existing functional constituencies, while nine seats would be returned through nine new functional constituencies representing all those eligible among the estimated 2.7 million workforce, who were not already in the old functional constituencies.