The government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) will launch a pilot scheme to train young school leavers and unemployed people to take up jobs as junior IT assistants, said Financial Secretary Donald Tsang Thursday.

"With the increasing popularity of electronic commerce and the use of internet, many companies require junior assistants to perform such tasks as the maintenance and updating of web sites, processing of trade documents in electronic format and office database application," Tsang said after chairing the 17th meeting of the Task Force on Employment in Hong Kong.

"With suitable training, young school leavers and unemployed people can acquire the necessary skill to take up jobs such as web administrator, computer graphics designer, electronic data processing clerk and IT technical trainee," he added.

The government will earmark 3 million HK dollars (380,000 US dollars) for the pilot course, which will provide 170 training places.

The course, to be jointly run by the Vocational Training Council and the Employees Retraining Board, will commence between February and March next year and will last for about 10 weeks.

"The course is specially designed with active input from the IT industry. Emphasis will be put on practical knowledge and training to meet the needs of the industry," Tsang said.

A Working Group has been set up by the Education and Manpower Bureau to devise the scheme.

"We will conduct a review upon the completion of the pilot scheme in May 2000, and if the results are satisfactory, we will consider expanding the training capacity to benefit more people," Tsang said. (Xinhua)