constituencies should be:
the Hong Kong/Chinese Enterprises
Association: one extra seat for the existing Labour FC: 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.
70. 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 (the total franchise under their
proposals would be about 140,000). 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.
They would
in any case yield a tiny Functional Constituency: there are
only some 50 such associations in Hong Kong. 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 regardless of national origin. It
could be divisive to create constituencies on the basis of
"national" interests rather than economic and professional
groups. Many Chinese enterprises are 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. In later Rounds, the
Chinese side hinted that they might be prepared to be flexible
on the number of corporate voters within a corporate voting
system. But they were never specific. The British side's view
remains that corporate voting should in all cases be replaced by
individual voting, for the reasons given above.
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