Tens of thousands of people are signing up for Putonghua courses as the handover approaches.
Employers are stepping up their Putonghua training programmes to ensure staff, including senior business executives, civil servants, teachers and salespeople, are bilingual or trilingual.
The territory's biggest employer - the Hong Kong Government - has taken 19,800 people through their northern tones since 1992, seeing a sevenfold increase in student numbers in the past five years.
Civil Service Training and Development Institute chief training officer Patrick Wong said some 300 Putonghua courses were scheduled for 7,300 civil servants in the 1997-98 year.
The number of civil servants taking the language courses had jumped from 1,000 in 1992-93 to 7,000 last year.
Courses include introductory, intermediate and advanced levels and special job-related programmes for staff at different departments according to their needs.
