PUBLIC HEALTH
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by the Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Department. Fat is sold by contract and reached a record price during the year. Hoof and horn meal is sold at a fixed price to any buyer. At times there is more material than can be processed by the plant. To preserve excess materials at such times a chill store was installed during the year.
Markets and Hawkers. In the interests of public health, legislation for the control of the sale of meat, fish, poultry, fruit and vegetables has been in force for many years. In the early days it was considered that the hygiene of premises retailing these commodities could only be satisfactorily controlled if the premises were built in market buildings and stalls let by Government, and there are 45 retail markets from which stallholders sell these commodities. Present policy is not to confine the sale of these commodities to markets but to allow freely the sale of fruit and vegetables by hawkers and to allow by licence the sale of all market commodities in shops, so long as these shops meet the conditions laid down by the law. Since health considerations no longer mean, as they used to, that market stallholders have a monopoly of trade in meat, fish and poultry, Govern- ment does not have to anticipate the need or supply all the premises for the trade. At present, in fact, the trade is itself opening up new shops in areas where they are needed. The building of markets in newly developing areas is now considered much less important than the reconstruction of some of the older and more congested market buildings.
In November one new market building was opened in Yau Ma Tei to reprovision the two old markets of the area— one of which had grown so old that it had collapsed.
There are 15,000 - 20,000 hawkers operating within the urban area. These retail many commodities, offer the services of certain trades and operate stalls for the sale of cooked food. The majority of hawkers are licensed, but a great many unlicensed hawkers operate in the more crowded areas. For the most part, unlicensed hawkers are not harried