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esidential, commercial and industrial premises toenhance the fire safety measures in these premises which,while in compliance with a previous standard, do notnecessarily meet the current standard for new buildings.Subsequent to the fire which occurred at the Hong KongBank Shek Kip Mei Branch on 10 January 1994, theAdministration commissioned a special inter-departmentalinvestigation team to look into the cause of the fire andto recommend preventative improvements to fire protectionmeasures and means of escape in commercial premises of asimilar layout.23, Against this background, it was subsequentlyproposed to introduce new legislation to require theowners of commercial premises of specific types with atotal floor area exceeding 23 0 M 2 to upgrade their firesafety measures. The new legislation (i.e. the FireSafety (Commercial Premises) Bill) will cover fireservice installations and equipment, means of escape,means of access and fire resisting construction. A newDivision within the FSD, to be called the CommercialPremises Improvement Division, will be set up aroundOctober 1996 to deal with the implementation of theenhancement of fire service installations to thecommercial premises under the new legislation.Establishment of an Inter-Departmental Working Group24. After the Yue Wan Estate fire, an InterdepartmentalWorking Group on Fire Safety in PublicHousing Estates (the WG) comprising representatives ofboth the FSD and HD was established to examine thefeasibility of enhancing the provision of EVAs and ofimproving fire safety measures in the PHEs, particularlyin the older estates. The WG has since drawn uprecommendations of improvement works regarding EVAs andFSIs and equipment in the PHEs, and has agreed that allimprovement works would be carried out in four phases,prioritised mainly according to the 'age' of thebuildings.25. The EVAs and FSI improvement works in respectof the Phase 1 estates are in progress. Construction ofadditional EVAs and/or provision of additional FSIs andequipment have been completed and/or are being carriedout according to the schedule. As for the Phases 2, 3and 4 improvement works, they mainly cover improvement to• 8 -