Hong Kong - Chinese Premier Wen Jaibao on Friday promised 14 measures from the central government in Beijing to help Hong Kong survive the global economic slump.

Wen made the pledge in talks with Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang Friday morning, the third and final day of Tsang's annual visit to the Chinese capital.

The measures promised by Wen included allowing more mainland Chinese visitors to enter Hong Kong to boost tourism and help for Hong Kong businesses with factories in China's Pearl River Delta.

Infrastructure projects involving Hong Kong would also be speeded up, said Wen, who commented after his meeting with Tsang that he was confident Hong Kong would overcome the economic slump.

Hong Kong - Chinese Premier Wen Jaibao on Friday promised 14 measures from the central government in Beijing to help Hong Kong survive the global economic slump.

Wen made the pledge in talks with Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang Friday morning, the third and final day of Tsang's annual visit to the Chinese capital.

The measures promised by Wen included allowing more mainland Chinese visitors to enter Hong Kong to boost tourism and help for Hong Kong businesses with factories in China's Pearl River Delta.

Infrastructure projects involving Hong Kong would also be speeded up, said Wen, who commented after his meeting with Tsang that he was confident Hong Kong would overcome the economic slump.

Hong Kong  - A man accused of being an illegal abortionist was expected to be charged Friday after a baby girl survived a late-term abortion and then being wrapped in plastic bags and abandoned with a bag of rubbish.

The accused, 67, was traced by police from closed-circuit television video inside a supermarket where the baby was found. He was due to be charged with performing an illegal abortion and abandoning an infant.

Police in Hong Kong were also searching for the mother of the baby girl.

The infant was delivered after induced labour. Police said the abortionist, thinking the baby was born dead, sent the mother home from his clinic before realizing the newborn was still moving.

Hong Kong  - A gang smuggled hundreds of thousands of US dollars of electrical goods from Hong Kong to China through underground drains crossing the border, officials said Friday.

Gang members lifted a manhole cover on the Hong Kong side of the border fence and sent cartons of goods by night along a 10-metre stretch of underground drain using ropes at either end, customs investigators said.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong's unemployment rate has risen to 3.8 per cent - the highest level in more than a year - as the global economic slump takes its toll, the government announced Thursday.

There are now 136,000 people out of work in the wealthy city of 6.9 million which has a workforce of more than three million, according to figures released for the period from September to November.

The jobless figure was 0.3 per cent higher than in the time from August to October.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong chief executive Donald Tsang Thursday appealed to Beijing to allow more tourists from mainland China into the former British colony to help revive its flagging economy.

Tsang made the appeal at a meting with the chairman of the national Tourism Administration, Shao Qiwei, during a three-day duty visit to the Chinese capital.

The Hong Kong leader said a combination of the global financial crisis and the introduction of direct flights between China and Taiwan, which means that Chinese visitors to Taiwan no longer need to transit via Hong Kong, had affected tourism.

Tsang told Shao a further relaxation in the regulations on mainland visitors to visit Hong Kong would compensate for the recent drop in tourist arrivals.