ARTICLE FOR BOARD OF TRADE JOURNAL
FIRST IMPRESSIONS IN HONG KONG
The newcomer to Hong Kong and even the visitor who has known Hong Kong in the past is immediately struck by the dynamism of the place. Its prosperity is evident all around one from the busy harbour, thronged with every kind of craft,
A Little to the immense skyscrapers going up on all sides. closer scrutiny will reveal new towns being built in the New Territories (each with a population larger than that of Sheffield), new factories and power stations, immense new Government built resettlement estates housing well over a million people at subsidised rents, vast new reservoirs created by damming whole inlets of the sea, mountains being levelled and land being reclaimed from the sea.
Statistics will confirm this visual evidence of prosperity. Domestic exports are increasing at the rate of 27% a year and imports at 20%. Bank deposits increased by 20% in the last year and activity at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange has grown to such an extent that a second Stock Exchange has been set up.
Textiles and clothing still lead the way as Hong Kong's major industry accounting for nearly half her exports but great efforts are being made to diversify production in order to avoid the dangers of too many eggs in one basket. Plastic products, wigs, electronic equipment are only a few of the vary varied goods which Hong Kong now increasingly
exports.
Consi¿loration.
Other signs of prosperity and of the confidence of Hong Kong citizens in the future of the Colony are such grandiose projects, either under way or under construction, as the Cross Harbour Tunnel, the extension of Kai Tak airport (so as to take the jumbo jets) an underground railway, a container port, two earth stations working to the telecommunications satellites and another 50,000 million
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