Hong Kong - Eleven years after British rule ended, only one in seven Hong Kong people consider that they speak good English, according to a survey released Friday.

More than 40 per cent of people in the former British colony describe their level of English as below average or worse while 15 per cent describe it as good and only 3 per cent say it is excellent.

The survey, which involved interviews with more than 1,000 people aged 15 to 64 in February, was conducted by an English language education company that trained interpreters for the Beijing Olympics.

It found that 62 per cent of people in Hong Kong believed English was very important to career success but only 12 per cent had considered taking extra classes in language learning.

English standards have fallen sharply in Hong Kong since the territory returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, multi-national businesses and business chambers have complained.

The fall in spoken English standards has been exacerbated by a controversial "mother tongue" teaching policy in Hong Kong schools to make Cantonese rather than English the main teaching medium.

The policy led to fierce competition among parents to win places for their children in the dwindling number of English-medium schools and has since been partially reversed. (dpa)