COMMUNICATIONS
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More than 24,000 native-type craft operate in Hong Kong waters and play a large part in the economy of the Colony. They are engaged in various occupations ranging from fishing to the transport of cargo. During the year, in the internal trades, these craft transported more than 870,000 tons of cargo inward and 125,000 outward, whilst in trade with China they imported large quantities of foodstuffs and other commodities; their total external trade for 1959 amounting to 1,387,000 tons inward and 155,000 tons of cargo outward. About 1,500 junks and lighters operate inside Hong Kong Harbour itself, transporting thousands of tons of cargo to and from ocean-going ships. About 3,000 mechanized local craft operate in the waters of the Colony.
The shipyards and marine engineering establishments in the Colony maintained a satisfactory level of both repair and main- tenance work on ships calling at the Port in 1959. Over one hundred new vessels were constructed to the order of locally-based owners and for others overseas in Ceylon, Pakistan, Burma, Malaya, Cambodia, Thailand and Borneo.
The services of the Ship Surveys staff of the Marine Department and of the resident Surveyors of Lloyd's Register of Shipping, Bureau Veritas, Norske Veritas and the American Bureau of Shipping are in constant demand by the thousands of ships of all nationalities which use the Port. Government Surveyors, apart from ensuring the observance of the International Conventions on Safety of Life at Sea and Load Lines, were fully occupied during 1959 in tonnage computations and checking standards of crew accommodation for the new ships built and the ships applying for registration under the British flag at Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong Register of Ships includes 400,000 gross tons of shipping, of which 102 are foreign-going steam or motor vessels of over 500 gross tons. The Examination Centre at Hong Kong serves the needs of navigating and engineering officers and crews manning this fleet and, together with the Hong Kong Technical College, gives full facilities for examinations for all Certificates of Competency of Commonwealth validity, and for Certificates in Radar Maintenance and as Radar Observer.
A Port Welfare Committee attends to the welfare of crews of visiting ships by allocating money provided by private donations