MR TOMMY CHEUNG (in Cantonese):
Mr. Deputy, my colleague, Mr. Kenneth TING, has analysed the difficulties
faced by SMEs from a macro perspective, so I will focus my discussion
on a component of SMEs the catering trade. I wish the Government would
appreciate and look squarely at the business difficulties encountered
by the catering trade and assist it in overcoming them.
Mr. Deputy, a week or so
ago, Mr. Sun Wing-chiu, a restaurant proprietor, set himself on fire
outside the Legislative Council as a flesh-and-blood protest against
the unreasonable trade effluent surcharge and the Government's irrational
extortion of the catering trade. The incident touched the nerves of
everybody in Hong Kong and the entire community was shocked.
I visited Mr. Sun Wing-chiu
at the hospital and he was still conscious when the doctors administered
emergency treatment on him. He said very explicitly that the action
had been taken in the interest of the whole trade rather than himself
personally. I do not necessarily approve of trade participants protesting
this way, but the Government must look squarely the fact that the trade
has been opposing the trade effluent surcharge for years. The catering
trade has always submitted meekly, and remained silent no matter how
many regulations are proposed by the Government and how harsh the licensing
conditions are. So long as they can have meals and receive wages, they
willingly submit to humiliation, oblivious to the adversities. Everybody
knows clearly about the situation faced by proprietors in the catering
trade as reflected by Mr Sun Wing-chiu's self-ignition.
Recently, several traditional
old-time restaurants closed their branches one after another, and small
and medium restaurants close down almost every day. Although there is
a saying that "another cock will crow after a cock died",
there are more dead cocks than crowing cocks now and only smaller cocks
are crowing because the bigger ones are all dead. Government officials
have been saying that economic recovery is underway, but the catering
trade fails to feel it at all.
The trade effluent surcharge
issue has haunted the catering trade for many years. Since 1995, operations
in the catering industry have been paying the trade effluent surcharge
in addition to the general sewage charges. In fact, over 80% of the
trade effluent surcharge collected by the Government every year is borne
by the catering trade, while the remaining 10% of so is shared among
29 other trades.
The catering trade does not
oppose the "polluter pays" principle but the charges must
be reasonable, economical and conducive to improving the environment.
From 1993 to 1994, the Government calculated the average of over 20
water samples and adopted a chemical oxygen demand rating at 2 000 as
the charging benchmark. However, there were thousands of restaurants
in Hong Kong and the average derived from over 20 water samples was
purely not scientific. Besides, it was unreasonable to adopt the average
as the charging benchmark. Restaurants also needed to apply for environmental
protection permits and those with chemical oxygen demand exceeding 2
000 were fined $200 000 for the first offence, $400 000 for the second
offence and $500 000 for the third offence. Daily fines were also imposed
on licensees who might be sentenced to imprisonment.
The Government has said in
a fine-sounding way that there is a channel for appeal but the expenses
of appeal are heavy, $20,000 to $40,000 a year in general, even heavier
than the effluent surcharge payable by restaurants. Therefore, over
80% of the restaurants are reluctant to appeal and thus forced to pay
despite the fact that the Government is forcibly snatching money from
them. How can we say it is fair when they have to pay even though they
are not polluters and they cannot appeal? How can this polluter pay
principle stand? The Government has collected trade effluent surcharge
for six years and reaped hundreds of millions of dollars over the years.
What has it done? Has the water quality been improved?
The copyright organizations,
CASH and IFPI, collect royalties from the catering trade according to
the law. The catering trade supports copyright protection, but since
the two organizations have not set any charging standards, they can
almost collect royalties arbitrarily. The charging mechanism lacks transparency
and the allocation of the charges collected is not open; thus, another
burden is put on the trade. My colleague, MR Howard YOUNG of the Liberal
Party, will dwell on this point in detail later.
The Government established
the $2.5 billion Special Finance Scheme for Small and Medium Enterprises
in 1998 but the banks put in place a lot of obstacles, and still "property
was taken as the main form of collateral". As far as I know, no
small and medium restaurant managed to borrow money from the banks.
Thus they have not benefited from the Scheme.
In respect of manpower training,
I started requesting for efforts on training up talents for the catering
trade since the 1980s. While the Government should be commended for
establishing the Chinese Cuisine Training Institute last year for it
was a good start, still this but is not enough. The Chinese Cuisine
Training Institute only trains new recruits and offers no on-the-job
training. Besides cooks, workers engaged in other work types in the
catering trade also require value-added training, therefore, the Government
should inject more resources to meet the needs of the trade.
In this year's Budget, the
Financial Secretary proposes the admission of mainland professionals
without a quota, however, he has overlooked the needs of the traditional
service industry. I hope that the government will consider extending
the scope of the admission of mainland professionals to the catering
trade. The Government can conduct a survey to assess the number of job
openings for dim sum makers and cooks to determine whether the admission
of mainland professionals is worthwhile for this trade. Recently, an
investor in the catering trade has told me that he intends to establish
a restaurant in Hong Kong offering cuisines from the northeastern part
of China and he intends to import such cooks and employ waiters and
other workers locally. However, the project has been shelved because
of rejection by the Government. Thus, we lose a chance to create job
opportunities in Hong Kong.
The Government has resolutely
implemented the Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) Scheme during an economic
downturn and refused to postpone its implementation. Although the catering
trade supports the MPF Scheme, it does not think it is an appropriate
time to implement it. A 5% MPF contribution not only puts a heavier
burden on the trade but also draws $2 billion contributions from the
market. Since this will influence the consumer market, the business
outlook of the catering trade this year is definitely not promising.
The Government has recently
launched a consultation among restaurants on the categorization and
hygiene manager schemes for licensed food premises, and the anti-smoking
organizations are advocating a total prohibition of smoking in restaurants.
The trade is worried that these measures will upset the business environment.
I have decided to mobilize the trade to make an evaluation on the economic
implications of a total prohibition of smoking in food establishments
and I will make public the details a few days later. Regardless of the
result of the evaluation, I hope the Government and the community will
the issue carefully.
Mr. Deputy, small and large
restaurants have closed down, the proprietors are full of complaints,
a person has protested by burning himself; thus the catering trade is
on the verge of explosion because of all these grievances. Given this,
how can we attract investors? The Government can no longer play an ostrich
and deceive itself. On each occasion after an incident has occurred,
the Government will often say that it is an "individual incident",
"it only barely increases the costs" or the cost is equal
to that of a barbecue pork bun. But the cumulative cost will actually
be equal to that of an abalone.
Lastly, I sincerely hope
that Mr. SUN Wing-chiu will recover very soon and I am grateful to Members
and officials who have signed on the card expressing our sympathy. Mr.
SUN only did the act because he was highly agitated after reading the
remarks made by Mrs. Lily YAM, Secretary for the Environment and Food,
on sewage charges in the newspaper. The incident might not be fair to
Mrs. YAM, but I believe he was not pinpointing at her. I wish that the
Government would bring order out of chaos and refine the sewage charges
and the appeal mechanism.
With these remarks, I support
the original motion and the amendment.