HONG KONG - Hong Kong's Chief Secretary Carrie Lam said on Wednesday that candidates of the region's next chief executive will be picked by a 1,200-member Nominating Committee as proposed earlier by the government.

Announcing a constitutional reform package at the Legislative Council, Lam said the committee members will be from the 38 sub- sectors of the four major sectors of the existing Election Committee.

Lam said, when the selection of the chief executive is implemented by the method of universal suffrage, the Nominating Committee will nominate chief executive candidates as an institution in accordance with democratic procedures, and such an arrangement will be different from the current arrangement whereby chief executive candidates are nominated jointly by members of the Election Committee.

Lam also mentioned that more than 130,000 written submissions from different organizations and individuals were received during the two-month consultation period which ended in March.