2
3. As regards item (d) of my terms of reference, the note that follows
is very much an interim one, in two senses. In the first place the
periods available for the study and the timing required for its
submission were such that I have been able neither to discuss its
conclusions with those (both official and otherwise) who have helped me
with views and information in Hong Kong; nor, particularly, to consult
my two principal collaborators, Prof Hart and Dr Fosh, in its drafting.
(Indeed, I am at time of writing not yet in possession of more than very
preliminary and roughly-calculated results from the second major survey
of Hong Kong employees which Dr Fosh organised and supervised for us.)
I therefore attach as Appendices two of their major contributions to the
study, Prof Hart's analysis of the Hong Kong labour market, and
Dr Fosh's report on her first pilot survey of 100 Hong Kong factory
workers*, both as references for my own draft and in case there should
be points at which they might feel that my interpretation differs from
that which they would have made.
4. But secondly, and especially, Hong Kong is not an "undeveloped" or
"developing" economy in the normal sense (where one is confronted with a
situation which is, at least in an economic sense, comparatively simple)
but a relatively rich industrial and commercial city-state. Some
indications of this, for instance, are the high "labour force participa-
tion rate" (54% of the population of working age at the last Census in
1971 when the total population was about 4 million) and an employee
labour force which is currently probably about 1,500,000, of which over
600,000 are in registered industrial establishments. It is also
significant that the preliminary results of our own survey suggest the
proportion of white-collar workers in the employee labour force to be
about 35%, which is comparable with that in the highly industrialised
economies of the West.
5. At the same time, it is an economic society with very special
characteristics, which add to the complexity normal to industrial
cultures. It has, if not an absolutely limited, at least very rigidly
limited and confined supply of land, and virtually no raw materials of
its own. It is almost totally dependent on exports and imports. Its
industrial composition is unbalanced, being still heavily concentrated on
* But without the detailed analytical Tables, which are necessarily
extensive.
/the