The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) adopted a meteorological law, amendments to Highway Law and Accounting Law, and a resolution on handling existing Macao laws here today.

With presidential decrees signed by President Jiang Zemin, the law on meteorological work and revised Accounting Law will take effect as of January 1, 2000, and July 1, 2000, respectively.

The Revised Highway Law will become effective on the day when it is published.

According to Li Peng, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, the law on meteorological work is to regulate meteorological forecasting work in order to provide better service to the country 's economic construction, national defense and social development.

The law on accountancy is amended in a bid to prevent frauds and increase supervision on accountants, he said.

Also approved was a resolution which stipulated that 30 existing Macao laws would not be adopted as laws of the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) in the future because they completely or partially contradict the Basic Law of the Macao SAR.

Li Peng described the resolution as "not only embodying the sovereignty principle, but also ensuring continuity of Macao's existing laws".

The national legislature also voted to approve one amendment on an international convention on controlling of hazardous wastes, and to join two international conventions, one of these being the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict.