Press Releases

Fees and charges for AFCD services to be revised
Friday, January 5, 2001

The Government published in the Gazette today (January 5) six Amendment Regulations to revise a number of fees and charges for services provided by the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) in relation to the control of animals and plants and the registration of veterinary surgeons.

The six Amendment Regulations are as follows:

(a)	Rabies Regulation (Amendment of Schedule 1) Notice 2001;
(b)	Dangerous Dogs Regulation (Amendment of Schedule 3) Notice 2001;
(c)	Plant (Importation and Pest Control) (Fees) (Amendment) Regulation 2001;
(d)	Pounds Fees (Amendment) Regulation 2001;
(e)	Dairies (Amendment) Regulation 2001; and
(f)	Veterinary Surgeons Registration (Fees) (Amendment) Regulation 2001.

"It is Government policy that certain fees and charges should in general be set at levels sufficient to recover the full costs of providing the services," a spokesman for AFCD said.

However, most Government fees and charges have been frozen since February 1998 as an exceptional measure to ease the burden on the community at a time of economic setback. In view of the current state of economic recovery, the Administration proposed to adjust the fees and charges for services not directly affecting people's livelihood or general business activities.

"The existing fees under items (a), (c), (d) and (e) of the Amendment Regulations were last revised in 1997. The fees under items (b) and (f) were first introduced in June 2000 and November 1998 respectively. A recent costing exercise conducted at 2000/01 prices reveals that some of these fees fall short of full-cost recovery. We propose to increase the fees by 2.9 per cent to 15 per cent with a view to achieving full-cost recovery within one to seven years or to maintain the real value of the fees."

The spokesman said that the fee increases should have little impact on the public at large.

"On the other hand, the costing exercise also reveals that some of the existing fees exceed the full costs which have been reduced as a result of streamlining of operations. We therefore propose to reduce such fees by 10 per cent to 42 per cent to tally with the full costs.

The previous Legislative Council Panel on Health Services was consulted on the issue in June and a further information paper was submitted in November 2000. Members of the Panel raised no objection to the proposals.

The Amendment Regulations will be tabled at the Legislative Council on January 10, 2001. Subject to approval by negative vetting, the revised fees will become effective on February 16, 2001.