KONGMOON
A465
journey to which tock one to travel in many days formerly can now be reached within a few hours. Of all the highways that connect with Kongmoon, the most important one is that which links up this port with Fatshan known as Kongmoon-Fatshan Highway (
佛公
). This road runs through
populous and richly cultivated districts. Regular motor-bus services are maintained throughout the year. A journey from Kongmoon to Fatshan takes 5 hours only which might again be shortened to less than 33 hours, should the different sections of the road be linked up by bridges instead of by ferry boats which are being employed in crossing rivulets transversing the districts in which the road is constructed.
.
A telegraph office was opened on the 8th December, 1907 in the town, and in November, 1911, in Pakkai, the outport of the Kongmoon City, and telegraph communication is now possible with the Fatshan Telegraph Office. Long distance telephones on the overland telegraph lines between Kongmoon and Canton, Shekki () and Yeungkong (I) were completed in the early part of 1933 and have been open to communication since.
TRADE IN 1936.
were
Five years have passed since the world-wide depression overtook China in the fall of 1931. With the ascent in the value of gold at the end of 1935 as a result of the adoption of a new monetary policy by the National Government, a turn for the better was in evidence during the year under As Kongmoon is a port in close proximity to Canton through which a great percentage of both the foreign and domestic trade pass, especially the latter due to cheaper freight by tow-boats by inland water routes than by steamers from Hong Kong, and as the Maritime Customs stations in the Kowloon and Lappa districts collect duty on imports destined for this port when they are conveyed by junks or power vessels under 100 tons, the available statistics give but an incomplete picture of the total trade of the port. In so as they are recorded by the Customs, the total value of the port's trade in 1936 was Standard $8,500,000 as compared with $9,500,000 in 1925, $15,000,000 in 1934 and $25,134,000 in 1933. From the above figures, it appears as if there was no improvement in the trade of the port. The excess of imports over exports, however, was reduced from $692,791 in 1935 to $162,014 in 1936. The turn of the downward trend in the balance of trade was one of the salutary effects of the currency reforms of the Govern- ment. Though the Shekki Station was under the control of the Kongmoon Customs for two months only prior to its being transferred to Lappa in 1935, the inclusion of the value of export trade of that station for January and February in the last year's figure accounted for the decrease of Standard $334,089 in the value of the outward trade in 1936 when compared with that for 1935
·
The principal articles of export consisted of palm leaf fans, fresh fruits notably oranges, fresh vegetables, dried and salted turnips, silk and garlics. Large quantities of softwood poles are floated down in the form of rafts which are dismantled here. Most of them come from places beyond Wuchow and also from places in the North River. The yearly value of this branch of trade is quite considerable. Paper is manufactured by the Kongmoon Paper Mill but its outputs are mostly of inferior quality.