TNAG-0735-FCO40-939-Policy-objective-for-the-developing-of-Hong-Kong-in-the-1980-1978 — Page 46

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is its first year of operation and the year is not yet over, the

legislation has on the whole worked well and has had a higher degree of

social acceptance than I would have expected so soon. There are

however some ambiguities in the legislation that have come to light in

practice, and if Your Excellency-in-Council accepts some minor amendments,

I would propose to seek enactment of these in this Council before the

end of the year.

Regulations to provide for workers' safety in the use of

electricity and to control fire safety in industry are also in the course

of preparation. The former will be a relatively simple code based on the

United Kingdom Factories Acts' Electricity Regulations and will cover insulation, circuit protection, wiring connections and earthings of

electrical equipment in industrial undertakings. The latter will codify

the present fire safety requirements to enable better understanding of

them by factory proprictors and more effective enforcement of them in

appropriate cases by the factory inspectorate to complement the work of

the Fire Services in this field.

The Labour Advisory Board has been consulted on all these

items and has agreed that they should be proceeded with.

With regard to workmen's compensation, the Working Party

that was set up in February this year to review the Ordinance

comprehensively has nearly finished its task and will be submitting its

report to me next month. I understand that its main recommendations are

likely to include :

(a)

the extension of the coverage of the Ordinance to all

employees;

/(b) ...