Construction Industry Safety Award Scheme promotes occupational safety and health

Recognizing excellence: the impact of the construction industry safety award scheme on workplace safety

The Labour Department (LD) held the 24th Award Presentation Ceremony of the Construction Industry Safety Award Scheme today (April 28) to recognise principal contractors, sub-contractors, site personnel and frontline workers with good performances in the area of occupational safety and health (OSH). The scheme aims at enhancing OSH awareness and fostering a culture of safety in the construction industry.

This year's award scheme received an overwhelming response with participation from 191 construction sites. Among them, 83 sub-contractors and 131 safety teams competed for awards in two categories, namely Construction Sites and Safety Teams. A total of 30 workers were also nominated for the Safe Workers award in the course of assessment. The result of the award scheme will be uploaded onto the LD homepage later. Apart from the award presentation, a fun day was also held today to promote the message of OSH to the industry and the general public.

Speaking at the ceremony, the Commissioner for Labour, Ms May Chan, said that among the 24 fatal industrial accidents that occurred last year, 20 involved the construction industry, indicating that the industry still had the highest OSH risks. The LD will keep close tabs on the OSH standards in the construction industry, and formulate and adjust in a timely manner a multipronged approach in accordance with risk-based principles, including inspection and enforcement, publicity and promotion as well as education and training to boost the OSH culture in preventing accidents.

The ordinance in amending OSH legislation came into effect last year. With regard to extremely serious OSH contraventions, the maximum fines and imprisonment terms were increased to $10 million and two years respectively. The penalties of various summary offences were also raised. Apart from optimising the legislation, the LD will set up Special Task Forces if necessary to conduct rigorous inspections and enforcement actions targeting construction sites accordingly to further strengthen the inspection and enforcement efforts.

Since the amendment ordinance took effect, the LD has unveiled comprehensive publicity work to enhance the promotion of the new penalties. In January this year, the LD collaborated with the Occupational Safety and Health Council (OSHC) to produce a special TV programme, namely "Both workers and employers shall abide by the law to ensure occupational safety", to disseminate the message of safeguarding OSH through a concerted effort of employers and employees. In addition, the LD organised the OSH Innovation and Technology Expo with the OSHCin March 2024 to promote the application of innovation and technology in the development of OSH. The LD also introduced the "OSH 2.0" mobile application in the same month, optimising the user interface and adding various new features to provide the latest and more comprehensive OSH information.

In terms of education and training, the LD revised the contents of several mandatory safety training courses, and the revised "Code of Practice (CoP) on Safety Management" and "CoP for Bamboo Scaffolding Safety" were gazetted in February and April this year respectively to ensure that the safety rules are in line with the latest developments of the industry. The LD also plans to launch the revised "Guidance Notes (GN) on Prevention of Heat Stroke at Work" in May. The revised GN would be in tandem with the "Extremely Hot Weather" Special Alert of the Hong Kong Observatory to further assist the industry in adopting necessary heat stroke prevention measures. As well, the revised "CoP - Safety and Health at Work in Confined Spaces" is targeted to be launched in about four to five weeks.

Inaugurated in 1999, the Construction Industry Safety Award Scheme is co-organised by the LD with 16 organisations, namely the OSHC, the Development Bureau, the Hong Kong Housing Authority, the Occupational Deafness Compensation Board, the Construction Industry Council, the Pneumoconiosis Compensation Fund Board, the Hong Kong Housing Society, the Property Management Services Authority, the Hong Kong Construction Association, the Hong Kong General Building Contractors Association, the Hong Kong Construction Sub-Contractors Association, the Hong Kong Federation of Electrical and Mechanical Contractors, the Minor Works Contractor Association, the Hong Kong Association of Property Management Companies, the Hong Kong Construction Industry Employees General Union and the Federation of Hong Kong Electrical and Mechanical Industries Trade Unions.

Construction Industry Safety Award Scheme promotes occupational safety and health Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

Construction Industry Safety Award Scheme promotes occupational safety and health Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

Construction Industry Safety Award Scheme promotes occupational safety and health Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

Construction Industry Safety Award Scheme promotes occupational safety and health Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

Speech by FS at CUHK EMBA Annual Conference

Following is the speech by the Financial Secretary, Mr Paul Chan, at the CUHK EMBA Annual Conference today (May 9):

Professor Dennis Lo (Vice-Chancellor and President, the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)), Professor Lin Zhou (Dean, CUHK Business School), Macy (Chairperson of Organizing Committee, Ms Macy Chan), Michael (Chairperson of Organizing Committee, Mr Michael Chan), CUHK EMBA alumni and students, business leaders, distinguished guests and friends,

Good evening.

Addressing a room full of Executive MBA students and graduates is both an honour and a privilege. There is a particular kind of ambition in this room — one that is not content with success alone, but driven to understand it more deeply, in the belief that better ideas lead to greater impact.

That kind of commitment — to learning, to growth, to asking harder questions — is precisely what today's conversation is about.

The theme of this conference, which focuses on innovation and agile leadership, could not be more timely. Most of us here have lived through the Internet age and the smartphone revolution, which made communication faster and more seamless than anyone had imagined.

Today, the rise of AI places us at a more fundamental tipping point. Technology is not merely changing the answers — it is redefining the questions themselves.

Consider what is already within reach. An AI assistant can learn your preferences, curate a personalised shortlist, and simply ask for your confirmation. We should even ask whether the smartphone and the search engine will remain our primary gateways to the digital world, or whether something altogether new is already taking shape.

To draw an analogy, the power of technology does not lie in drawing the old map with greater precision. It lies in revealing how much of that map remains uncharted — and in showing us that entirely new maps, with new co-ordinates, are being drawn.

This redefinition is unfolding across three dimensions simultaneously.

First, the redefinition of products. Products are no longer discrete, standalone objects. A smart car is a vehicle, but also a mobile platform for data. An insurance policy can be a contract, but equally a dynamic reflection of health data. Innovation today is born from cross-sector convergence and continuous evolution.

Second, the redefinition of services. Services are no longer delivered solely by enterprises. They emerge from collaborative networks of people and AI. But the more profound shift is in what customers now expect. In the past, good service meant reaching the right person quickly. Today, customers expect a solution that anticipates their needs before articulating them. This requires a new architecture of service delivery: human and machine, with AI handling the scale, the speed, and the personalisation that no human team alone could sustain.

Third, and most importantly, the redefinition of business models. In the past, we sought optimal solutions within established frameworks — when demand rose, we expanded capacity; when service needs grew, we opened more branches. Technology invites us to break out of those frameworks entirely. Intelligent manufacturing means that "economies of scale" is no longer the only answer; flexible supply chains have made customised, on-demand production the new normal.

These three redefinitions are opening a commercial frontier unlike anything we have seen before. But if the benefits of technology accrue only to a small circle, its power remains fundamentally constrained. This brings me to the second message I want to leave with you today: inclusivity.

Inclusivity is not charity. Yet it is the smartest business strategy available. The unmet needs of the broader public represent the largest and most underserved market opportunity in existence. When you make quality healthcare, education and financial services accessible and affordable to ordinary residents, you are not serving a group in need of handouts — you are unlocking a vast market that traditional business models have consistently overlooked.

Hong Kong has a distinctive role to play here. We can be a co-architect of standards, a hub for capital, and a bridge between innovation and real-world deployment — from clinical validation of smart healthcare, to green technology financing, to regulatory sandboxes for fintech. Our contribution draws not only on institutional strengths and international networks, but on our genuine commitment to broad-based participation.

Yet inclusive products and services are only the first step. The deeper dimension is empowerment.

History reminds us that the dividends of technological revolution need to be actively guided to reach the many. In the age of steam, and again in the Internet era, early gains concentrated among capital owners and top-tier talent. But today we have the opportunity to write a different story. AI, as an amplifier of human capability, is already enabling what was previously unimaginable: a solo entrepreneur, with the right tools and the right vision, can build a unicorn.

In other words, the unit of competitive advantage is shifting — from the size of your team to the skill with which you orchestrate your tools.

Our mission should be to make that shift available to everyone. To turn individual readiness into collective prosperity, and to ensure that the productivity gains of AI flow broadly across the society.

This is precisely why, in this year's Budget, I placed such emphasis on the "AI Training for All" initiative.

We are not trying to turn everyone into an engineer. We are ensuring that workers, managers, SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) owners, and ordinary residents become capable collaborators with AI: people who can access it, use it effectively, and put it to work as their assistant.

That may sound ambitious, but consider this: if AI can one day be as intuitive as the smartphone, then mass adoption is not difficult to imagine at all. Just as computers once migrated from specialist facilities into offices and homes, AI will find its way into everyone's daily work and life.

For business leaders, it may be tempting to think of AI as "digital employee" that can replace existing workers. But think of a different framing: equipping your workforce with powerful digital assistants can achieve productivity gains, while also freeing your people to do what humans do best — create, imagine and innovate.

Companies that take those extra steps, and think those extra moves ahead, will find that an empowered workforce is also a more innovative one.

All in all, the power of technology must ultimately be measured by its contribution to inclusive growth. And inclusive growth, in the end, depends on, yes, commercial acumen — but also empathy, compassion, and the conviction that a rising tide should lift all boats. I can see that those qualities live in this room.

I will close with this thought. Someone once joked that economists know the price of everything and the value of nothing. With AI, let us never fall into the same trap — in our race to price every efficiency gain, let us not lose sight of the deeper value we are trying to create: a society where the fruits of innovation are broadly shared, and where technology lifts not just the fortunate few, but everyone willing to reach for it.

So here is my ask: let us grow the pie together. And make sure we cut it well.

Thank you very much.

Source: AI-found images

Speech by FS at CUHK EMBA Annual Conference Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

Speech by FS at CUHK EMBA Annual Conference Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

Source: AI-found images