corporate voting.
They proposed that the nine new functional
constituencies should be: the Hong Kong/Chinese Enterprises
Association: labour: agriculture and fisheries: textiles and
garments: Importers and Exporters Association:
Kai Fong
Welfare Associations: insurance: maritime: and sports. These constituencies should also be based on corporate voting.
In the view of Her Majesty's Government and the Hong Kong Government, the Chinese side's proposals would not deal adequately with the problems associated with corporate voting and very small constituencies set out in para 74. above. Some of their specific proposals also failed to meet the requirements for functional constituencies.
Kai Fong Associations are not economic or professional groups of importance in the community. The proposal for a Chinese Enterprises Association constituency is inconsistent with Hong Kong's general approach of treating all investors and
enterprises in the same way. It could be divisive to create
constituencies on the basis of "national" interests rather than economic and professional groups. Many Chinese enterprises were already registered electors in other functional
constituencies. The Chinese proposal for an Insurance Functional Constituency could only be formed by splitting the existing Financial Services constituency which was already very small. Given the small number of authorised insurers in Hong
Kong (229) the insurance constituency would by itself be tiny.
78.
The British side put forward revised proposals on the
nine new functional constituencies in round nine. These took
account of the Chinese proposal that functional constituencies
should all be based on organisations, and also built on six of the nine specific Chinese proposals. In subsequent Rounds, the
British side offered a number of further revisions to their
list of Functional Constituencies, in a major effort to bridge
statememt26.8/BRIEFS/NJH
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