professional sectors of substantial importance in Hong Kong. Her Majesty's Government and the Hong Kong Government consider that if the functional constituency system is to meet the requirements of fairness and openness, there are two lessons to be learnt from recent experience. First, corporate voting can lead to an individual having effective control over several
votes in functional constituencies. Second, the very small
electorates in some of the existing constituencies lead to a risk of corruption, of which there has been a recent example in Hong Kong. It is therefore necessary to provide for
constituencies of a substantial size.
63. The Governor's proposals in October 1992 took account of these points. He proposed that for the 21 existing functional constituencies, the process of gradual development should be
maintained by replacing all forms of corporate voting with
individual voters. For the nine new functional constituencies,
the Governor proposed that the simplest and fairest approach
would be to define them so that they included the entire
working population. On that basis, the Governor proposed nine constituencies based on the existing classification of
industrial and commercial sectors.
64. The Chinese side's proposals, put forward in round six of
the negotiations, were that the composition and voting method of the existing 21 functional constituencies should remain
precisely as they were in 1991, retaining the concept of corporate voting. They proposed that the nine new functional
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.
statememt26.8/BRIEFS/NJH
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