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The following is issued on behalf of the Business Facilitation Advisory Committee Secretariat:
The Business Facilitation Advisory Committee held its second meeting today (June 26).
The committee reviewed the work of the five business facilitation task forces set up to take forward regulatory reviews covering the construction, real estate, retail and food business sectors.
The Pre-construction Task Force is working closely with the Lands Department to improve the lease modification mechanism. A consultancy study will be commissioned to review the processing of lease modification and land exchange applications with a view to identifying the scope for re-engineering the existing processes and enhancing operational efficiency. The Task Force to Review the Construction Stage of the Development Process reported the progress of the consultancy study on private certification of building submissions. The Draft Final Report of this study will be circulated next month (July) to relevant stakeholders including the staff unions for comments.
The committee was pleased that the Town Planning Task Force's recommendations to improve the main planning processes had been well received by the Planning Department. The Retail Task Force is working on its regulatory review of beauty products/cosmetics/medicine regulations, the labelling schemes on allergen and nutrition information and the mandatory energy efficiency labelling scheme. The Food Business Task Force is conducting regulatory reviews on the problems encountered by the trade in the areas of outside seating accommodation for restaurants, liquor licences and factory canteens.
The committee noted that the review of licensing requirements for places of public entertainment (PPE) covering theme parks and family amusement centres had been completed with sound recommendations to improve the existing regulatory system and process. It was envisaged that the average processing time for new applications for PPE and Amusement With Prize Licences would be reduced by 25% and the trade would benefit from 10% savings of the start-up and operating costs. The committee was also told that to further improve the licensing system, the Administration was conducting a feasibility study to develop a licensing support centre, which would provide one-stop licensing services to the business community by co-ordinating the application of multiple licences between businesses and various licensing authorities.
The committee also received an interim report on the progress of the consultancy study on the review of application and inspection of plumbing installations in new buildings. The Draft Final Report of the study will be circulated to relevant stakeholders for comments in August.
Papers for the committee meeting will be uploaded onto the internet (www.gov.hk/fso/bfac/eng) for access by the public.
Ends/Monday, June 26, 2006
Issued at HKT 16:36
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