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the Government will consider the need to strengthen existing industrial safety legislation and urge the Legislative Council to expedite its scrutiny of two important pieces of draft legislation which will greatly enhance industrial safety;

the Education and Manpower Branch will publish a charter for safety to promote safety culture in work places;

the Occupational Safety and Health Council will mount an intensive educational and publicity campaign and organise a series of seminars on industrial safety; and

the Government will tighten the rules on suspending contractors with unsatisfactory industrial safety records from tendering government

works contracts.

"While the Government has attached the greatest importance to industrial safety, real improvement can be achieved only with joint effort from the employers and employees," Mr Kwong stressed.

"Workers, contractors, consultants and Government staff alike, all must increase safety endeavours in every way possible," he noted.

Mr Kwong said that the annual ACP Construction Safety Award Scheme, organised by the New Airport Projects Co-ordination Office (NAPCO), had over the past few years helped to promote an increasing awareness of safety among ACP contractors, their supervisors and workers.

"It has also been an important part of NAPCO's initiatives to encourage more improvement in construction safety," he added.

Mr Kwong pointed out that in 1992 with the construction activities for the ACP beginning to intensify, the Government introduced a series of measures designed to ensure that the highest possible standards of construction safety were achieved in ACP

contracts.

"The joint efforts of all parties concerned have produced positive results. In the first five months this year, we have achieved a non-fatal accident rate of 56 per thousand workers per year, which is within ACP's target of 60.