DotDotWeekly | 'Historic milestone': HK's LegCo passes national security bill

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'Historic milestone': HK's LegCo passes national security bill

Hong Kong's Legislative Council on Tuesday passed the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance.

The city's legislature convened a special meeting today to resume its second reading of the bill, where lawmakers expressed their support for the homegrown legislation.

Lawmakers then began considering 91 amendments to the bill proposed by the government, after which came the third reading of the bill.

At the end of an hours-long special session, lawmakers unanimously passed the bill after it went through its second and third readings.

John Lee: Safeguarding National Security Ordinance to be gazetted and come into effect on March 23

The Safeguarding National Security Ordinance will be signed and gazetted on March 23 for implementation, which means the Ordinance will come into effect on the same day, Hong Kong's Chief Executive John Lee said in the Legislative Council (LegCo) on March 19.

"Today, the constitutional responsibility and historical mission of legislating on Article 23 of the Basic Law has finally been accomplished, and the Third Reading has been passed, thus effectively safeguarding national security." Lee noted.

Lee also mentioned that the Ordinance enables Hong Kong to effectively prevent, stop and punish espionage activities, conspiracy traps by foreign intelligence agencies, and infiltration and sabotage by hostile forces.

About 20 more key enterprises to come to HK for development this week, Paul Chan says

Financial Secretary Paul Chan revealed in his blog on March 17 that following the announcement in October last year that about 30 key enterprises would set up or expand their operations in Hong Kong, a second batch of about 20 enterprises would come to the city this week.

The two batches of key enterprises would invest a total of more than HK$40 billion in Hong Kong and create more than 13,000 jobs, most of which would be in scientific research and management and boost the development of HK's entire innovation and technology ecosystem, Chan estimated.

Previously, the SAR government's new budget proposed to develop Hong Kong into a multinational supply chain management center.

Chan, in this regard, pointed out that the pattern of international trade has been changing in recent years, with the share of Hong Kong's exports to Europe and the United States declining significantly.

"On the contrary, the share of Hong Kong's exports to ASEAN countries rose from 6.1% in 2003 to 7.9% last year, making it Hong Kong's second-largest export market, and the share of Hong Kong's exports to the Middle East also rose to 3.3%," he noted.

Ticket refunds for Messi no-show in HK to be processed by May

Disappointed soccer fans, some of whom had reportedly paid up to HK$5,000 ($639) to watch an exhibition match in Hong Kong in which Argentinian superstar Lionel Messi failed to play, will have until April 12 to accept a 50-percent refund on their tickets.

Tatler Asia, the organizer of the match, said on Monday that customers who bought tickets through official channels will have until 11:59 pm on April 12 to respond and accept the terms and conditions of the refund.

Customers who purchased tickets through the official ticketing platform, Klook, will receive an email notification from Klook on March 18 while those who bought tickets directly from Tatler Asia will be contacted by their dedicated account manager.

Refunds will be processed within 30 days from the April 12 deadline and payment times may differ depending on the recipient's bank policy and process.

HK's jobless rate stays at 2.9%

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 2.9% for the period between December 2023 and February 2024, unchanged from November 2023 to January 2024, official data showed Monday.

The underemployment rate also remained unchanged, at 1%.

The number of unemployed people was 102,300, unchanged from the preceding three-month period. The number of underemployed people decreased by around 1,200 to 37,600.

Besides highlighting that the unemployment rates of various sectors remain low, Secretary for Labour & Welfare Chris Sun said the labour market is expected to stay tight in the near term, in parallel with continued growth in the local economy.