The Chief Executive in Council has accepted all recommendations of the Electoral Affairs Commission on the delineation and names of geographical constituencies and the allocation of seats to each geographical constituency for the 2004 Legislative Council election.

The commission recommended that the boundaries and names of the five existing geographical constituencies remain unchanged.

They are Hong Kong Island (Central & Western, Wan Chai, Eastern and Southern); Kowloon West (Yau Tsim Mong, Sham Shui Po and Kowloon City); Kowloon East (Wong Tai Sin and Kwun Tong); New Territories West (Tsuen Wan, Tuen Mun, Yuen Long, Kwai Tsing and Islands; and, New Territories East (North, Tai Po, Sha Tin and Sai Kung).

The number of directly elected geographical constituency seats will be increased from 24 to 30 for the election.

For the allocation of additional geographical constituency seats, the commission recommended that for Hong Kong Island, the number be increased from five to six; for Kowloon East, four to five; for New Territories West, six to eight; and, for New Territories East, five to seven. For Kowloon West, the number of seats will remain at four.

The details are set out in the Declaration of Geographical Constituencies (Legislative Council) Order 2003 which will be published in the Government Gazette tomorrow. The order, together with the commission's report submitted to the Chief Executive on September 8, will also be tabled in the Legislative Council on October 15.

If the order is passed through negative vetting, the Government and the commission will put in place all necessary arrangements in the coming months to enable the smooth conduct of the election.

A primary consideration was to ensure compliance with the population criterion under the commission's ordinance, the Constitutional Affairs Bureau said.

This means the average population of each seat in a geographical constituency should not exceed or fall short of 15% of the population quota, which is obtained by dividing the total population of Hong Kong by the total number of geographical constituency seats.

Apart from this, the commission will also adopt the following working principles:

* The boundaries of the five existing geographical constituencies should form the basis of consideration in the current demarcation exercise;

* For existing geographical constituencies where the population falls within the permissible range of the population quota requirement, their boundaries will be adopted as far as possible to form new geographical constituencies;

* Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories are to be treated separately as these areas have been regarded as distinct from one another;

* Delineation of geographical constituencies should follow the boundaries of districts as far as is feasible. Where splitting of districts is unavoidable, it should affect the least number of districts; and,

* Matters relating to maintaining political influence or advantage will not be considered.

The commission has done its job in compliance with the statutory requirements. Before making its final recommendations, it conducted public consultations and considered carefully all public representations.

The commission endeavours to strike a proper and fair balance between the views of the public and the various statutory criteria.