A TELEPHONE hotline to Beijing's new body on Hongkong affairs is almost certainly on the cards, senior Chinese official Lu Ping revealed yesterday.
He said the setting up of a liaison office and telephone hotline in Hongkong, to collect public views on the formation of the post-1997 government, was almost inevitable.
The so-called ''liaison point'' would collect submissions and letters from Hongkong people to be sent to the secretariat of the newly set-up Preliminary Working Committee (PWC) for the Special Administrative Region Preparatory Committee.
The Beijing-based secretariat, headed by Mr Lu, will then relay the views to all members. He pledged the PWC would listen to all sectors of Hongkong society.
The 57-member panel, including 30 local members, has been criticised for its lack of wide representation of Hongkong opinions.
Playing down the PWC as ''a working body'' with no decision power, Mr Lu said: ''It's not a political discussion group. . . of course it has to listen to the views of Hongkong people widely. Anybody in Hongkong can reflect their views through the Hongkong members or through the liaison point,'' Mr Lu said.