Cashing in on the Legislative Council's recent visit to the Pearl River Delta, members of its Panel on Transport have received an official invitation to form an inspection tour to Guangdong Province.

Tentatively, the panel has pencilled January 2-6 and April 10-13 next year as the ideal dates because there are no LegCo plenary meetings at that time.

Since the first time slot is longer with five days, the panel may as well include Shanghai as one of their ports of call. As panel members do not have particular preference to any of the dates, they will leave the matter to the convenience of the mainland authorities.

The invitation to visit the province was extended on October 18 by Huang Liman, director of the Standing Committee of the People's Congress of Guangdong Province.

It was made in response to LegCo President Rita Fan's proposal to set up a communication mechanism between legislators of both places after 59 Hong Kong lawmakers had visited the province in September in what was called an "ice-breaking trip".

In Huang's words, this mechanism is to forge regular contacts over matters of economic and livelihood concern.

Editor: Yan