Secretary for the Civil Service Joseph Wong today welcomed the first delegation of civil servants from the Beijing Municipal Government under the Hong Kong - Beijing Staff Exchange Programme.

The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Personnel's Deputy Director Huang Qiang led the delegation of five professional officers from the Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning, Transportation Committee and Health Bureau.

They will spend three months with their Hong Kong counterparts. In the coming months, four Hong Kong civil servants will spend time with their counterparts in Beijing.

The first staff exchange programme with mainland cities started in 2002 when Hong Kong and the Shanghai Municipal People's Government signed an agreement under which both sides arrange professional officers to attach to the other government for about three months.

Programme aims to widen staff exposure

The programme's main objectives are to:

* widen the exposure of participating staff;

* facilitate cross fertilisation of experience and expertise; and

* help foster closer partnership and communication between both sides.

In the past two years, Shanghai and Hong Kong have each sent eight officers to join this programme. It has now been expanded to cover Beijing and Hangzhou. The Civil Service Bureau entered into similar agreements with the two cities at the end of 2003 to exchange secondees each year from 2004 to 2006.