Directory_and_Chronicle_1939

A478

TENGYUEH (MOMEIN)

TRADE IN 1937

The import trade of Tengyueh fluctuated considerably during the year. In the early months the marked rise in price of Shanghai yarn and the temporary shortage of stocks in Shanghai that was noted towards the close of 1936 was still causing dealers to turn to Burma to replenish their supplies, and large quantities of cotton yarn and raw cotton were imported. This movement came to an end in May, when arrange- ments began to be made to change the local currency from a silver to a provincial paper basis, and a period of marked hesitation in business ensued. Activity recom- menced in October, when the impossibility of obtaining stocks of yarn from Shanghai led to renewed large importations from Burma. The final result for the year was 4,620 quintals of cotton yarn imported (1936 figure, 1865 quintals) and 4,885 quintals raw cotton (1936 figure, 3,344 quintals). The value of the import trade for the district recorded in Customs statistics was $1.1 million as compared with the true trade figure of $0.67 million for 1936, but falls short of the total of $1.6 million for 1935 and of $1.8 million for 1934. The increase in imports during 1937 is also reflected in the figures of mule-loads entering Tengyueh from abroad, viz., 14,973, which is an increase of 45 per cent over the 1936 total of 10,356. Totals in 1924 and 1935 were 22,582 and 16,211 respectively.

The export trade as a whole was valued at $3.6 million as against $3.9 million for 1936. Trade in the staple export, Szechwan raw silk, remained brisk. It was hardly to be expected that the exceptionally high figures of 1936 (4,395 quintals valued at $3.5 million) would be equalled, for the quantity exported in that year strained the capacity of the Burina market, but the 1937 exports (3,799 quintals valued at $3 million) still represent a high volume of trade and compare favourably with figures for previous years. This silk, which, being land-borne, enters Burma free of duty, comes from the producing districts in Central Szechwan, from Kiating in the west to Chungking in the east, and is borne by pack-caravan south to Yunnanfu and thence west to Tengyueh and on to Burma. From Szechwan to Tengyueh the journey takes from two to three montlis in actual travelling time. Quite a high proportion of China's total exports of raw silk are sent abroad through this port. In 1936, for example, the value of the local export, viz., $3.5 million, was a fraction under 10 per cent of the entire raw silk exports of the country. In the same year the value of the silk exported from Szechwan (Chungking) far easier Yangtze river steamer route was $1.5 million. The figures cited might be regarded as showing that, in determining direction of trade, the height of tariff barriers is of more importance than ease and speed of communica- tions.

Business generally remains poor, and the impossibility of replenishing stocks of sundries from Shanghai adds to the merchants' difficulties. Shop rents have been falling during the last few years, owing to the state of trade. In other ways Tengyueh had a prosperous year-continued freedom from bandits and a first-rate rice harvest.

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