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HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT
class has an enrolment of twenty fishermen and their studies include Chinese, English, Arithmetic and Social Studies.
Schools have been established in nine main fishing centres and considerable progress was made during the year in constructing new premises. In particular, two new school buildings were com- pleted a six-classroom school at Tai O on Lantau Island and a two-classroom school at Stanley on Hong Kong Island.
At the end of 1959, 2,259 fishermen's children were receiving education through the Organization. Of this number 1,363 were students at the Organization's own schools while the remainder were receiving scholarships or other awards with which to finance their education at other institutions.
The success of the Organization has attracted world wide in- terest, and many visitors and students from other lands have studied the operations of the Organization with a view to setting up similar schemes in their own countries.
Vegetable Marketing Organization. Following the success of the Fish Marketing Organization, the Government decided to intro- duce a similar system for the wholesaling of locally-produced vegetables, where the problems were not dissimilar. The scheme, which was first established in September 1946, now operates under the Agricultural Products (Marketing) Ordinance, 1952, which pro- vides for the appointment of a Director of Marketing (now known as the Commissioner for Co-operative Development) who is made a corporation sole with power to acquire and dispose of property, and for the appointment of a Marketing Advisory Board, con- sisting of the Director as Chairman and four other persons, nomi- nated by the Governor, who have wide and practical experience of the difficulties and needs of farmers. It is the Government's declared policy that the Organization should one day be run by the farmers themselves as a co-operative enterprise. (See under Federation of Vegetable Marketing Co-operative Societies later in this Chapter).
The Organization undertakes two main functions. First, it col- lects vegetables from Vegetable Marketing Co-operative Societies, depots and posts conveniently located throughout the New Territories and transports them to the wholesale vegetable market in Yau Ma Tei. Second, it arranges the sale of this produce and manages all the attendant financial transactions.
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