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To facilitate Hong Kong service suppliers' access to the Mainland market as well as to obtain third-party accreditation of their capability, one of the liberalisation measures under the second phase of the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) is to allow Hong Kong service suppliers to apply for Computer Information System Integration (SI) Qualification Certification in accordance with the provisions of the relevant Mainland rules and regulations. The Ministry of Information Industry of the Central People's Government has granted the SI Qualification Certificate to seven Hong Kong companies. One of the liberalisation measures under Supplement IV to the CEPA is to allow Hong Kong service suppliers to set up wholly-owned enterprises on the Mainland to provide software implementation services and data processing services.

E-government

E-government is an integral part of the Government's overall IT strategy. Building on the solid foundation laid down in the past few years, Hong Kong has launched the next stage of e-government.

Following its aim to use IT to provide customer-centric services that promote an accessible, accountable and efficient government, and contribute to Hong Kong's position as a leading digital city, the Government is pursuing the following key priorities under the next stage of e-government development:

(a) GovHK

GovHK (www.gov.hk) was officially launched in August 2007 as Hong Kong's one-stop shop for online government information and services. For the convenience of users, GovHK provides information and services most frequently sought by the general public from different government bureaux and departments in a one-stop manner. There are four user groups (i.e. Residents, Business & Trade, Non-residents and Youth) and 11 different sections under the Residents user group on GovHK (e.g. Environment, Transport & Motoring, Culture, Leisure & Sports etc). The design and content of the portal will be updated continually.

(b) E-procurement

The Finance Committee approved on January 26, 2007 the funding proposal for implementation of a Pilot e-Procurement Programme. The programme aims to test out e-procurement at the bureaux and departmental levels to improve internal efficiency and to encourage external suppliers to adopt e-

commerce.

(c) Property Information Hub

The Rating and Valuation Department (RVD) and the Land Registry (LR) are planning to set up a Property Information Hub (PIH) to improve the transparency of property information. An incremental approach will be adopted to take forward the PIH initiative. RVD will first roll out its new departmental e-service in 2008 to enable online public access to its property data.