Staggering from Hong Kong's decades- long industrial downturn, labor leaders capitulated Tuesday to demands by manufacturers to import low-wage textile workers from the mainland. In return, employers agreed for the first time to impose minimum wages in specific cases.

The Labour Advisory Board, a 12- strong policy unit composed equally of employer and employee representatives, agreed to a government proposal to import up to 5,000 mainland textile and garment workers on a minimum wage of HK$200-HK$235 a day.

The trial scheme, which is expected to pass through the Legislative Council and the Executive Council in the next two months, would require existing factories to employ one local employee for every four mainlanders hired. New or returning factories would need to hire a local for each mainlander.

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