Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) Chief Executive Donald Tsang announced here Wednesday that to better ensure food safety, the SAR government has been working on a comprehensive Food Safety Bill for introduction in the current legislative session.

Delivering the 2008-09 Policy Address at the Legislative Council Wednesday morning, Tsang said the recent milk product incidents have highlighted the inadequacies of existing laws and the need to speed up the legislative work. The HKSAR government has set up an expert group to thoroughly assess the impact of the melamine incidents and to recommend follow-up measures to the Chief Secretary for Administration on the healthcare and food safety fronts.

He said the HKSAR government will give priority to drafting the relevant part of the Food Safety Bill so that the authorities can promptly ban the import and sale, and order the recall of, problem food when necessary.

"We will soon introduce the Bill into the Legislative Council," said Tsang.

The policy address, titled "Embracing New Challenges," responded to Hong Kong's new challenges, including the current global financial crisis, food safety and environmental pollution.

The Policy Address was Tsang's second annual policy address since he won a second term as HKSAR Chief Executive in March 2007.

(Xinhua News Agency October 15, 2008)