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The Council for Sustainable Development had chosen the themes of clean living environment and population policy in taking forward a new Sustainable Development Strategy engagement process in 2006, Council vice-chairman Dr Edgar Cheng said today (December 16).
He said the two were chosen as the priority areas after taking into account views expressed by stakeholders at a stakeholder forum in July this year.
"The council attaches great importance to the views of stakeholders in planning for the new exercise and the long-term sustainability of Hong Kong," Dr Cheng said. "We will take forward the two priority areas vigorously and work closely together with stakeholders and interested parties, and draw on their experiences in respective fields."
On the priority area of clean living environment, the council will set up a study group to address the more imminent needs - to compile a full picture on actions and efforts taken by the Government on the air quality issue; to fill the current information gap between the Government and the community, and to identify scope for the community to contribute their views.
The study group will be chaired by the council vice-chairman, with members drawn from the council and relevant government agencies. It plans to complete its report in the second quarter of 2006.
On the other hand, the council's Strategy Sub-committee will be tasked to take forward the engagement process for the priority area of population policy. A new support group will be set up to assist in the preparation of a new Invitation and Response document and the rollout of the public involvement stage in 2006.
At today's meeting, the council also considered the programmes and initiatives undertaken by the Education and Publicity Sub-committee. There were 43 submissions to the third round of Sustainable Development Fund applications. The sub-committee will review the applications, with a view to announcing the results early next year.
Meanwhile, the School Outreach Programme to visit 70 secondary schools in all districts in Hong Kong began in October this year, and will last till May, 2006. The winning entries of the Sustainable Development Publicity Materials Design Competition will be mass-produced as education and publicity materials. The AV-production winning entries are already uploaded on the website of the Sustainable Development Unit (www.susdev.gov.hk).
The agenda and discussion papers for today's council meeting will also be posted on the website in one week, and the digest of discussion at the meeting will be posted soon after that.
Ends/Friday, December 16, 2005
Issued at HKT 19:02
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