Liaison Office chief's wishes

Zhang Xiaoming, director of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the HKSAR, expressed three wishes in his speech to members of the Legislative Council (LegCo) on Monday: first, to maintain sincere communication with all walks of life in Hong Kong, including LegCo members; second, to provide assistance to LegCo in organizing mainland visits for legislators to learn more about the motherland; and third, to join efforts with Hong Kong residents across the social spectrum in smoothly implementing universal suffrage.

Zhang's three wishes are not only sincere and well-meant but also enlightening and pragmatic, which is why local communities responded positively. Opposition lawmakers should do so too by abandoning their hostile and confrontational stance, communicate rationally with the Liaison Office, know more about the country without political bias and push for universal suffrage along the track of the Basic Law and relevant decisions of the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC).

He also hopes to make friends with more people from all walks of life in Hong Kong who can bare souls with one another. He said: "We already have many friends in the LegCo but not enough. We wish to make more friends with the lawmakers." Pro-establishment legislative councillors have always maintained regular contact with the Liaison Office. Apparently Zhang was referring to opposition lawmakers by "new friends", because they for various reasons rarely communicated with the Liaison Office in the past. With the lunch on Monday setting precedence for more such contact opposition parties in the future should be more motivated to try and come to friendly terms with the Liaison Office.

Zhang also offered to help if LegCo members wish to visit the mainland in groups. This is really good for opposition legislators who wish to learn more and better about the national condition, socio-economic development and people's life by going to the mainland and seeing with their own eyes.

As for implementing universal suffrage, Zhang said he would like to join efforts with local residents across the social spectrum in building an election system best suited to Hong Kong's unique condition according to the Basic Law and relevant decisions of the NPCSC. There is ample room for innovative ideas on implementing universal suffrage in Hong Kong without breaching the constitutional framework.

This is an excerpted translation of a Wen Wei Po editorial published on July 19.

Protect consumer rights

The Trade Descriptions (Unfair Trade Practices) (Amendment) Ordinance 2012 (the Ordinance) came into effect on Friday. The coverage of the newly-revised consumer rights protection bylaw has been extended from retail items to services as well, targeting in particular false descriptions of goods and services, misleading omissions, aggressive commercial practices, bait advertising, bait and switch, and wrongly accepting payment.

Hong Kong is well-known for its well-developed retail and services industry and has earned the reputation as a "shopper's paradise" with a full set of laws and regulations to protect consumers' rights and interests. However, some wayward business owners sought to profit from loopholes and gray areas in the statutory structure by deceiving, misleading and/or trapping consumers over the years, causing serious damage to the reputation of Hong Kong's retail and services industry. The latest revision of the Ordinance aims to win back consumer trust by plugging the loopholes and cracking down on unfair trade practices such as listed above to boost consumption and tourism.

Before the revision the Ordinance only covered retail goods; allowing some morally corrupt service providers to rip off consumers by all kinds of malpractices. There were many publicized cases where angry consumers complained about beauty parlor staff members putting tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in service charges for "package treatment" on customers' credit cards before the latter had time to think it over. And the service contracts usually contained numerous unfair terms and conditions designed to deny criminal liability and avoid compensation for the customer in case of legal dispute. Consumer Council records show the watchdog received more than 27,000 individual consumer complaints against service providers as well as retailers, of which more than 3,700 were accused of unfair trade practices cited above. These were the main reasons for the introduction of the revised Ordinance. It is expected to serve adequate deterrence to businesses against fraudulent practices with a maximum fine of HK$500,000 and five years behind bars.

However, the revised Ordinance still contains some gray areas that make it hard to determine whether a business has indeed violated the law. The Customs and Excise Department, which is responsible for enforcing the Ordinance, will need to spot such imperfections and handle them properly case by case.

This is an excerpted translation of a Hong Kong Commercial Daily editorial published on July 19.

(HK Edition 07/20/2013 page6)