Procedures and principles for inclusion of characters into Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set published
29 - 04 - 2000

The Information Technology Services Department (ITSD) today (April 29) published on the Internet the procedures and principles for inclusion of additional characters into the Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set (HKSCS).

The procedures and principles were agreed by the Chinese Language Interface Advisory Committee (CLIAC) at its sixth meeting held today following its full consideration and thorough study of the opinions collected from public consultation.

The HKSCS, which was published on 28 September 1999, serves as a common interface to facilitate computer users to communicate accurately in Chinese through electronic means.

Subsequent to the release of the character set, it is still necessary to include additional characters on an on-going basis to meet users' requirements.

The establishment of the procedures and principles for inclusion of additional characters into the HKSCS will therefore help coordinate the community's requirements of using characters for Chinese computer systems, and will ensure the proper utilisation of the user-defined area of computer systems.

ITSD published the proposed procedures and principles on the Internet between March 24 and April 20 this year for comments by members of the public.

According to the published procedures and principles, members of the public will be able to download from the Internet application forms for inclusion of additional characters into the HKSCS.

The completed forms should be sent to the Secretariat of the CLIAC by fax, mail or e-mail.

The Working Group on Characters for Chinese Computer Systems (WGCCCS) under the CLIAC will validate the applications in accordance with the principles for inclusion of additional characters into the HKSCS.

When applying for inclusion of additional characters, members of the public should provide sufficient information including the pronunciation, meaning, usage, origin and example(s) of the characters to facilitate the validation of applications by the WGCCCS.

"This set of procedures and principles for inclusion of additional characters has provided an effective mechanism for characters for Chinese computer systems applicable in Hong Kong to be included into the HKSCS," said the Chairman of the CLIAC, who is also the Director of Information Technology Services, Mr Lau Kam-hung.

The Convenor of the WGCCCS, Dr K H Cheung, said,"This set of procedures and principles has also helped to establish putative criteria for the establishment of a standard character set for Chinese computer systems."

Detailed information on the procedures and principles for inclusion of additional characters into the HKSCS is now available at the web site of the "Digital 21-IT Strategy" (http://www.digital21.gov.hk/chi/hkscs/index.html).

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