1981 — Page 109

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the whole of Java Road one way Westbound in the morning, and one way Eastbound during the evening rush hours.

May I leave these thoughts to tax the wisdom of those members on this Council who also sit on the Transport Advisory Committee.

With these words Sir, I support the motion.

THE HON. MAria W. C. Tam (in Cantonese):-Mr. Chairman, there is an old Chinese saying which says: 'to the people, Food is top priority?' and another which says: 'It's not easy making a living, and food must therefore be enjoyed'. In many ways these words depict the sentiments of the factory workers in Hong Kong, whose difficulty in finding a reasonably comfortably place to have their meals has been a cause for concern not only for members of the Food Hygiene Select Committee but also for my Colleagues in this Council. Their concern is reflected in the questions they had raised about the number of licenced Factory Canteens in our public sessions.

Factory Canteen

At the time of our last Conventional Debate we were still having difficulties in persuading the Public Works Department 'to modify the Crown Lease (in existing industrial buildings) to accommodate applications to have factory canteens operating on the ground floor or first floor of industrial buildings' (from Mr. Edmund CHow's speech, January 1981). Between February and April 1981 the Government, having taken note of the above mentioned difficulty that the applicants for Factory Canteen licences were facing, and having been persuaded by the Urban Services Department that the Government should be more accommodating, came to a decision that such canteens could operate also on the 1st or ground floor of an industrial building provided that there was no direct access to the street. (The other conditions being that it must not be part of a parking or loading area; and should not exceed 10% of the gross floor area of the building(s) erected on the lot, and all statutory departmental requirements were met.) On a successful application for a licence, the canteen in question would be tolerated in the life time of the building in which it was situated and the Government Property Management/Modification Office would issue them with a 'No Objection' letter as a form of modification to the Crown lease.

Between January 1981 to December 1981, 25 factory canteen licences had been issued in the Urban area with 73 issued with letters of meeting health requirements. There has also been 42 refusals and 48 withdrawals of application.

In April 1981, a standard 'factory canteen clause' was formulated and later on incorporated into new or modified industrial leases giving the developers an option in constructing a canteen premises in an industrial building. There are

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by now 54 applications for modification of Crown leases and I hope many more will come in aid of alleviating the meal problems of the workers in factories.

However the new type of Crown lease can do little for industrial areas like Kwun Tong, which is already fully developed with little or no room for new factory buildings. There are at present only 9 licenced canteens in operation. The vast majority of workers have their meals supplied by 124 fast food shops, 176 restaurants and 14 bar food shops. Where we cannot envisage any significant increase in the number of factory canteens the answer must lie in increasing the number of other types of food premises.

In Kwun Tong, it is estimated, there are about 80 illegal cooked food stalls in the rear and side lanes. By mid 1983 about 18 months from now, the cooked food centres in Kwun Tong Ferry Pier Concourse and Tsun Yip Street should be completed. There will be space to accommodate 77 of them if the Council should decide on reprovision policy. I hope the workers will enjoy selecting from these stalls the food they want and sit comfortable when taking it, rather than eating at unlicenced canteens in loading bays and fire escape route if we were to scrap the licencing laws.

Food Labelling and Date Stamping

The food shopping habit of the Hong Kong people have changed through the years. There are now more and more customers shopping at super markets where locally produced and imported, fresh or frozen food are conveniently displayed for sale. Now and then, however, we hear of complaints of cheese found to be moudly and biscuits found to be soggy once the package is unwrapped at home. One thing is clear, as long as we have no food labelling and date stamping requirements for pre-packaged foods in our law, Hong Kong remains at risk of being made a dumping ground of imported pre- packaged food which is at the end of if not already passed its shelf life elsewhere. In respect of food labelling the rationale is simple: that consumers should know what they are eating, whether it is nutrients or preservatives, natural or artificial ingredients. They should also know if they are getting value for their money and the net weight of the food inside the package must be specified on the label.

In order to consult the opinion of the food importers and local food manufacturers on food labelling 400 copies of a circular letter was sent to them, as well as to foreign trade commissions and consulates. There are of course, well established practices and ample legislations on food labelling in Europe and North America. The Food and Drug: Labelling of Food Regulations in U.K. was enacted in March 1970 and fully implemented in January 1973. The Codex Alimentarius on marking of prepackaged foods was formulated in September 1978 and the E.E.C. countries adopted a set of articles common to all member States relating to labelling of foodstuffs in December 1978. All of these legislations require the basic and correct informations on the label on: the

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