Chief Executive Carrie Lam today met Legislative Council President Andrew Leung to discuss local legislation and other follow-up work in relation to improving the electoral system.

She told Mr Leung that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government fully welcomes and supports the approval by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of the amended Annex I and Annex II to the Basic Law.

Mrs Lam said the Hong Kong SAR Government will press ahead at full steam with the exercise of amending the relevant local electoral laws, targeting to introduce the bill into LegCo in mid-April.

The Chief Executive added that she is grateful to LegCo for accepting her earlier suggestion for it to form a subcommittee under the House Committee to first deliberate on the main contents of the National People’s Congress' decision and the amended Annex I and Annex II to the Basic Law.

This way, the subcommittee would immediately be transformed into a Bills Committee to scrutinise the bill upon introduction by the Hong Kong SAR Government.

Mrs Lam pointed out that taking into account the time needed for local legislation and preparatory work for the relevant election, the seventh-term LegCo election is expected to take place in December this year.

She told the LegCo President that the Government still has about 16 legislative proposals covering a wide range of economic and social matters that would require the council’s scrutiny in the coming few months.

The Chief Executive hoped that the current-term council could continue its operation until the start of the electoral process of the seventh-term LegCo.