The members of Commission on Strategic Development agree to temporarily shelve the discussion on introducing two-chamber system into Hong Kong's Legislative Council (LegCo), Secretary for Constitutional Affairs of Hong Kong Stephen Lam said Thursday.

He announced the decision after the meeting of the Committee on Governance and Political Development of Commission on Strategic Development (CSD) Thursday afternoon.

Lam told reporters that the commission made the decision out of several considerations, one of which is that to change the composition of LegCo requires the amendment of appendix II of the Basic Law.

The two-chamber system will complicate the procedure of legislation and budget approval, which in turn will affect the efficiency of the administration of the government, he added.

On the universal suffrage arrangement of the LegCo, Lam said the commission made a thorough discussion about the evolvement of the existing functional constituencies election system and most members of the commission thought LegCo universal suffrage should be implemented in phases.

He said all the members agreed the universal suffrage for the Chief Executive of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region should be based on the Basic Law and a nominating committee representing the majority should be established before the suffrage.

As to the size of the nominating committee, Lam said most members are focusing on the range of 800 members to 1,600 members. Regarding the level of support required for a candidate to be nominated, basically most members of the commission focused on the range of one-eighth to one-quarter support among the members of the nominating committee.

Source: Xinhua