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Although we have tried to use plain English content on the site, you may come across specialist terms and acronyms. Find out what they mean in our glossary of terms.
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The Government has indicated that it would like to see labour and environmental standards better integrated with trade agreements without allowing developed countries to use this as a pretext to keep out developing country exports. Until recently, few bilateral or regional trade agreements included detailed provisions on either trade and labour or trade and the environment. The agreements with the most direct incorporation of such provisions involve the US (eg the US/Jordan Free Trade Agreement).
Membership of the ILO and the environmental agreements listed below are limited to states. Hong Kong is not a member as such, yet it participates in these activities in a capacity commensurate with its consititutional status, and the relevant ILO conventions and environmental agreements are applied by the Hong Kong SAR.
Hong Kong applies many of the same labour conventions as New Zealand (right to organise and bargain collectively, prohibition against forced labour, employment of children etc). There is currently no statutory minimum wage. According to a Hong Kong government publication (Quarterly Report of Wage and Payroll Statistics September 2000), the overall wage rate for employees in the manufacturing sectors is HK$118,164 (NZ$33,761). For employees working in the TCF sector, the lowest wage rate was in the garment industry sector where employees earned an average HK$94,668 (NZ$27,048)
With a labour force of 3.4 million and some 300,000 employers operating enterprises of varying sizes, Hong Kong authorities advise that the Hong Kong Labour Department last year conducted more than 160,000 inspections to ensure compliance of provisions relating to employees' rights and benefits, and another 150,000 inspections on compliance of safety and health standards. Arising from these investigations, Hong Kong took nearly 8,000 prosecutions, and secured about the same number of convictions.
The eight core ILO conventions are listed below with New Zealand and Hong Kong application in brackets:
Of 183 ILO conventions, currently adopted by the ILO, Australia applies 50, New Zealand 48 and Hong Kong 40. This compares with Japan (37), Singapore (20), Korea (11), China (17) and India (37).
The Hong Kong authorities have provided the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade with further information on its labour laws which can be made available to interested parties on request.
From an environmental perspective, Hong Kong applies many of the key global agreements including:
In addition, in the past two years Hong Kong has placed a greater emphasis on improving the quality of its environment, and has implemented a number of measures aimed at encouraging sustainable development and preventing and reducing environmental pollution. It has indicated, as reflected in the agreed Understanding, that it is be willing to identify issues of mutual concern for dialogue and co-operation in a bilateral CEP with New Zealand.
