ENG-1989 — Page 328

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COMMUNICATIONS AND THE MEDIA

the activities and aims of their respective departments. Through these efforts they play a major role in maintaining the flow of information and helping to improve relations with the public.

The overseas public relations sub-division (OPRS) assists in the government's publicity efforts overseas and produces and distributes promotional material worldwide. This includes The Week in Hong Kong, a newsletter mainly on trade and economic matters, feature articles and newsclips for radio and television. Assistance is provided for visiting journalists requiring information and interviews with government officers, and close liaison is maintained with news agencies and overseas journalists based in Hong Kong. This year, the unit assisted 341 overseas journalists and 63 other visitors, distributed 51 features, and produced 15 video items for television.

The Publicity Division

The Publicity Division embraces the creative, publishing and promotional resources of the department. Its ambit includes photography and film-making, an extensive photographic library, the staging of exhibitions, the design of books, leaflets and posters and the design and placement of all government advertising. GIS produces a wide variety of publications ranging from leaflets and fact sheets to the Hong Kong Annual Report and other full-colour books. Sales of government publications totalled more than $31.1 million in 1989, compared with $31.8 million in 1988. The main emphasis of publishing activity continued to lie with information material for free distribution. During the year some 708 items totalling over 8.2 million copies were given out to the public. These included leaflets advising on procedures for obtaining a wide range of government services, together with fact sheets covering 58 topics, which are updated annually with the latest statistics.

The Publicity Division also organises and implements all government campaigns and publicity programmes. It educates the public on major issues of concern and creates public awareness of civic responsibilities through posters, films, exhibitions and other promotional material. Road Safety, Crime Prevention, Civic Education, Home Safety, AIDS and the Issue of New Identity Cards continued to be accorded major campaign status, as were Anti-Narcotics, Fire Prevention, Environmental Protection, Easy Travel Scheme and Industrial Safety. A new campaign was organised to promote parental responsibility and greater awareness of the requirements for proper child care. Publicity was also introduced to stress the need to preserve and appreciate Hong Kong's cultural heritage.

The Press

Hong Kong's flourishing free press consists of 63 newspapers and 598 periodicals, which have a high readership. The registered newspapers include 47 Chinese-language dailies and two English-language dailies. A number of news agency bulletins - Chinese, English and Japanese - are also registered as newspapers.

Of the Chinese-language dailies, 40 cover mainly general news, both local and overseas, while others cover solely entertainment, especially television and cinema news, and one concentrates on finance. The larger papers include Chinese communities overseas in their distribution networks, and some have editions printed outside Hong Kong, in particular in the United States, Canada, Britain and Australia.

Hong Kong is the South-east Asian base for many newspapers, magazines, news agencies and the electronic media. Among the international news agencies with offices in