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Hong with the aim of bringing the establish- ment up to its full strength of 1,000 investigators by the end of this year. There can be absolutely no doubt about the determination of the Hong Kong Administration to tackle the question of corruption in the colony when the facts and the figures are as I have given them.
Secondly, in the field of labour affairs there has been a steady stream of legisla- tion to safeguard the health and safety of workers in recent years, including the 1975 labour relations ordinance. This sets up formal procedures for solving labour disputes and amendments to the employment ordinance which entitles workers to severance pay and protects employees from anti-union discrimina- tion. The problem in Hong Kong is not that they have no trade unions but that they have too many of them. Of the. many trade unionists in Hong Kong, three-quarters are Chinese and Com- munist. Once more, Honk Kong is sui generis. There is no lack of freedom of speech, of the Press, of discussion, of unionisation. What Honk Kong lacks is natural resources. Therefore, the policy of keeping this vast population employed, healthy, and progressively better educated has to be coped with against that back- ground. Considering the difficulties, the Hong Kong Government have succeeded very well indeed.
Thirdly, I ought to mention the great efforts which have been made by the Hong Kong Government to improve pub- lic amenities in Hong Kong by providing recreational facilities and applying environmental standards, particularly in the construction of the new towns. As
we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers, this is of major importance in so densely populated a territory where the population is comparatively young.
I pass now to the third point that the Question raises: the economic aspect. These improvements in social services have been made possible by the rapid rate of economic growth until the recent recession. An economy like Hong Kong, which is so dependent on exports, is par- ticularly sensitive to world trading con- ditions. The world trade recession over the past two years therefore hit Hong Kong particularly badly. For example, by the end of 1974 exports had fallen 23 per cent. below the December 1973 level. By mid-1975, the economy was
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Kong operating well below capacity; there was a considerable increase in unemployment and a decline in real wages; and econo- mic growth had come to a standstill. Even so, the Hong Kong Government continued to pursue their social objectives during that recession. The percentage of the budget spent on the social account for the purposes my noble friend and I have so much at heart increased from 37 per cent. in 1972-73 to almost 40 per cent. in 1975-76—that is, during the reces- sion at its worst-once more proof that the Hong Kong Government is and was. in earnest in devoting resources to the amelioration of the conditions of the people.
The resilience of the Hong Kong economy has once again been demon- strated. By the spring of 1975 there was a renewed demand in world markets so that by the latter end of the year Hong Kong exports showed an increase of 4 per cent. at constant prices over the year as a whole, compared with 1974. The tex- tiles industry, which is Hong Kong's largest employer and foreign exchange earner in the manufacturing sector, is expected to record a growth in exports this year of between 15 and 20 per cent. Other industries are also reasonably optimistic about their prospects.
That brings me to a point made by my noble friend Lord Segal about the imports of textiles from Hong Kong into this country. Textile imports from Hong Kong into this country are already sub- ject to control under the EEC ́Hong Kong textiles agreement. An important element in that agreement is that other Member States of the Community will. take a greater proportion of the growth of Hong Kong textile exports than in the past, and the United Kingdom corre- spondingly less. The average rate of growth of intake of textiles from Hong Kong for the Community as a whole is 7 per cent. For the United Kingdom it is 2 per cent., with some growth rates in imports as low as one-half of 1 per cent. for the most sensitive items. I sug- gest that by agreements in this way between the Community and Hong Kong it is more effective to protect British interests than to go for the cruder kinds of import control measures which nowa- days are so frequently advocated.
As I am referring to my noble friend Lord Segal, whose speech 1 greatly
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