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Following is the speech by the Commissioner for Labour, Mrs Pamela Tan Kam Mi-wah, at the "Development of Safety Culture through Promotion" Seminar of the ILO Technical Cooperation Programme 2001 today (December 12):

Mr. Ndjonkou, Mr. Kawakami, Distinguished Guests, Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen

Good morning. It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to the seminar today, which is a function jointly organized by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Labour Department and the International Labour Organization under the Technical Cooperation Programme.

Safety and health at work has always been a major area of concern in Hong Kong. In the early days, we relied heavily on enforcement to drive home the message of safety performance. Prescriptive laws were passed and enforced. Poor and under-performers were prosecuted. However, we have all come to realize that regulation by the government alone is not the best way to achieve a high standard of safety and health at work.

Experience in other parts of the world has shown that self-regulation is a more effective approach. Only through self-regulation can we hope to secure the long-term success in sustaining a high standard of safety performance. This is because the primary responsibility for safety and health at work lies with those who create the risk and those who work with the risk, namely employers and employees.

Self-regulation, however, would not work unless it is underpinned by a good safety culture. That is why, over the years, we have worked very hard to establish a safety culture that we hope would take root. In September 1996, we launched an Occupational Safety Charter spelling out Hong Kong's safety values. The Charter promotes safety as a shared responsibility of employers, employees and the Government. Through vigorous promotion of the Safety Charter, I am glad to say that it has been very well received. To date, over 550 organizations, including Hong Kong's major enterprises, trade associations and labour unions, have subscribed to it.

In 1999, we introduced new legislation to require workers employed in the construction and the container handling industries to receive basic induction safety training. The idea was to consolidate safety culture at the shop-floor level. Up to now, over 470,000 workers have received basic safety training. Workers' safety awareness and safety culture in the workplace have been greatly enhanced.

However, no safety culture is sustainable unless it is underpinned by a system. For this reason, we have promoted the concept of safety management system, through which self-regulation can be put into practice. We have been promoting this safety management system over the years. Indeed, this system is now enshrined in the Factories and Industrial Undertakings (Safety Management) Regulation which we hope to bring into effect next year.

It is encouraging to note that Hong Kong has seen a drastic drop in the number of industrial accidents in the past few years. Our accident rate (number of accidents per thousand workers) for all industries in 2000 is 51.7, compared with 64.7 in 1998. The safety performance of the construction industry, which is historically the most hazardous of all industries, has also improved significantly during the period. The industry's accident rate and fatality rate, at 149.8 and 0.364 respectively in 2000, have fallen by 39.6% and 48.7% from their l998 levels. The trend of improvement continued in 2001.

The improvement in our safety performance is clearly the result of the concerted efforts by employers, employees, the Government and related bodies, like the Occupational Safety and Health Council, driven by a safety culture that is becoming increasingly ingrained. Indeed, the seminar today provides a good opportunity for the representatives of employers, employees, the Occupational Safety and Health Council, and the Government to come together to exchange ideas and views.

Today we are very privileged to have Mr. Kawakami with us. Mr. Kawakami is a renowned safety specialist with wide global exposure. He is going to share with us his expertise in the promotion of safety culture. I am sure that we will be able to gain valuable insights into how other advanced economies go about building a safety culture and how safety culture can be effectively measured. These new insights will help us map out new strategies to take forward our continual efforts to strengthen safety culture for Hong Kong.

I wish to thank the International Labour Organization for jointly staging this event with us. The International Labour Organization and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Labour Department have had a history of cooperation over the years. Today's seminar is but one in a series of many technical cooperation programmes. Special thanks must go to Mr. Ndjonkou, who has come all the way from Beijing to join us today to open the seminar.

I would also like to thank members of the Labour Advisory Board, its Committee on Occupational Safety and Health, and the Occupational Safety and Health Council who are with us today. I am sure that, with your continued support and partnership, we will be able to improve the level of safety culture in Hong Kong.

In closing, I would like to quote Miss J Bacon, the former Director General of the United Kingdom's Health and Safety Executive. Her words, which more or less sum up the Journey of any country to building a safety culture, go like this:

"The primary responsibility for improving and maintaining standard of health and safety lies with employers. HSE, as the regulatory body, depends on employers and others doing what they are supposed to do - that is, self-regulation. Self-regulation in turn depends on employers recognizing in full the business case for health and safety, introducing quality management systems which secure it, and leading the development of safety cultures which will sustain good health and safety."

Finally, may I take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a very prosperous New Year. Thank you.

End/Wednesday, December 12,2001

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