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HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT
a range of textile manufactures for all O.E.E.C. countries exclud- ing Hong Kong. Negotiations took place in Paris in May in an effort to have these discriminatory measures withdrawn, but no progress had been made in this direction by the end of the year.
A Government representative attended the fourteenth and fifteenth sessions of the G.A.T.T. Conference held during the year at Geneva and Tokyo respectively.
Trade Promotion. In the face of these curbs on Hong Kong's expanding exports, Government's activities in the field of trade promotion have necessarily been primarily defensive.
Succeeding paragraphs deal with some of the more positive work of the Export Promotion Branch of the Commerce and Industry Department. In these activities the Director of Commerce and Industry is ably assisted by the Trade and Industry Advisory Board, on which serve leading representatives of the Colony's merchant and industrial community.
The Export Promotion Branch of the Commerce and Industry Department, which is responsible for organizing Colony participa- tion in overseas trade fairs, also publishes and distributes overseas a monthly illustrated 'Trade Bulletin' which is partly financed by local advertisers. At the end of the year local circulation was 1,500, while 8,000 copies were being distributed free to readers overseas. The 1959 edition of the department's 'Commerce, Industry and Finance Directory' was published in May. This Directory is a comprehensive guide to Hong Kong business in its economic and administrative setting. The 1960 edition will be published in the late spring.
The Trade Promotion Branch also maintains a trade reference library and a display room where samples of local products are on show for the benefit of both overseas visitors and members of the public.
One important function of the branch is to deal with trade inquiries from abroad and to arrange factory visits for overseas visitors or meetings between them and local trade bodies or representatives. During the year arrangements of this nature were made for trade missions from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sweden, Greece, Ghana, Burma and Thailand, for several Members of Parliament, from the United Kingdom and for officials from the