REVIEW
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was a Hong Kong exhibit at the annual Fair for the next seven years and each year the number of trade inquiries increased. Participation ceased after 1955, largely because the nature of the Fair had changed. Members of the Chinese Manufacturers' Asso- ciation had meanwhile been showing their goods at exhibitions in South-East Asian countries (e.g. in Singapore, Malaya, Indonesia) and the Government broke new ground, from 1954 onwards, by arranging sponsored displays in Seattle, Toronto, Frankfurt and New York. Plans have been made to test markets in Australia by participation in the Melbourne Trade Fair in 1959. Individual merchants and manufacturers have exhibited local products with success at other fairs as well. Concurrently the Chinese Manufac- turers' Association has been improving its annual exhibition of local products, first held in the Colony in 1938 and revived, after the war-time hiatus, in 1948. While designed primarily to present local products to the local consumer, these exhibitions have also attracted businessmen, individually or in delegations, from a number of overseas countries, principally Asian. In the field of trade publications, the Government opened its campaign in 1949 with a Commercial Guide to Hong Kong, designed to meet a need of merchant houses overseas for commercial information concern- ing Hong Kong. In 1950 the British Industries Fair Directory, for the guidance of visitors to the Hong Kong display at Olympia, was first produced. The functions of these two publications and of other trade fair directories were then absorbed by the present Commerce, Industry and Finance Directory, of which since 1953 three revised editions have so far been published. A monthly Trade Bulletin has also been published by the Commerce and Industry Department since 1954, and this has gradually built up a world-wide circulation among overseas businessmen wishing to keep abreast of developments in the Colony's industry and trade.
EXPORT PROBLEMS
Stimulation of light industry by active sales promotion overseas has been effective. Hong Kong's manufacturers have gained con- fidence in competing against industries elsewhere, and the world in general has gradually learned (in spite of some remaining