COMMUNICATIONS
Telephones
The public service for the Colony, including Kowloon and the New Territories, is provided by the Hong Kong Telephone Company, Limited.
At the end of the fiscal year the total number of direct exchange lines working was 29,779 and the number of exten- sions was 14,550, a total of 44,329 stations.
Considerable progress in the development of the Company's plant to meet the continued demand for telephone service has been made since the production of the last annual report.
New telephone exchanges have been installed in the eastern area of Victoria, and at Shaukiwan. A rural exchange has been re-opened at Fanling, and Repulse Bay and Stanley exchanges have been replaced by modern equipment with increased capacity.
The installation of new underground cables, for both imminent and future development, has made considerable
progress.
Meteorological Services
Weather services for the general public, shipping, aviation and the armed forces are provided by the Royal Observatory, which maintains a forecasting office at Kai Tak Airport and outstations on Waglan and Cheung Chau Islands in the approaches to the harbour. The Observatory itself remains the centre for the provision of storm warnings, which has been one of its most important functions since its foundation in 1884. Warnings are distributed by radio to shipping and aircraft whenever a tropical storm or typhoon is located in the Hong Kong area of responsibility, i.e., the northern part of the China Sea and the coastal waters of China as far north as
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