The newly announced 18-month pilot scheme will enable people to download the relevant data free of charge via www.gov.hk/Data.One.

Hong Kongers will now be able to access useful information including names and addresses of public facilities such as government offices, hospitals, schools, and sports venues.

All this information is already on the web but this scheme significantly simplifies the downloading of the data for value-added re-use.

"Geo-referenced public facilities data and real-time traffic data of main roads have been chosen for the pilot scheme because they are closely related to people's daily lives, and thus have a higher re-use value," said a spokesman for the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer. "The Government will review the effectiveness of the pilot scheme, and consider the overall policy for disseminating public sector information for value-added re-use."