'Drop More Crimes For Business Sector Votes'

Liberal Party chairman Felix Chung warned the government on Sunday that it may not have enough votes in the legislature to approve planned changes to Hong Kong's fugitive transfer law.

The government is seeking legal changes to allow local authorities to surrender wanted people to jurisdictions with which Hong Kong does not have a formal extradition agreement – including the mainland, Macau and Taiwan.

The business sector has already scored a victory with the government agreeing to drop nine white-collar crimes from the list of offences that would be covered.

But Chung says they now want three more types of crimes to be excluded, to help assuage concerns from local businesspeople that they may 'unintentionally' fall afoul of the law while doing business in the mainland.

“We still have maybe three (types of crimes) left over that we want [the Security Secretary John Lee] to take away. That's why the business sector still do not say yes [to the amendments] right now”, Chung said.

But the pro-government lawmaker conceded that this may be easier said than done, saying “I think it's very difficult for them to amend any more."