68
INDUSTRY AND TRADE
has become best known for the price, quality and range of the products of its light industries. Of importance are cotton piece- goods, cotton yarn, towelling, ready-made garments of all kinds, cotton and woollen knitwear, enamelware, aluminiumware, torches, torch batteries and bulbs, transistor radios, vacuum flasks, plastic- ware including plastic flowers, paints and varnishes, rubber and leather footwear, and rattanware. Among traditional Chinese goods the best known are brocade piecegoods, embroideries and drawn- work, crocheted gloves, carved articles of wood, ivory and jade, and paper novelties.
There are many factors favouring industrial development in the Colony. They include low taxation, plentiful productive labour, the advantages of a free port, excellent shipping and commercial facilities, and freedom from locally imposed trade restrictions. These, in general, more than compensate for important handicaps such as an absence of raw materials, a scarcity of water and a shortage of land suitable for industrial purposes. While the first cannot be remedied the last two are being vigorously tackled. Extensive action to alleviate the water problem has been, and is being, taken. The opening of a reservoir at Shek Pik on Lantau Island in 1963 will increase the total storage capacity of the Colony's reservoirs by 50 per cent (see chapter 14). To offset the shortage of flat land, Government continues to level hills and use the spoil to reclaim land from the sea. The largest and most advanced of these schemes is at Kwun Tong, an area fronting Kowloon Bay adjacent to urban Kowloon. Between 1955 and the end of 1962, 230 acres were reclaimed at Kwun Tong for industrial use and the full scheme involves the formation of some 514 acres of useful land. Of this, 275 acres will be for industrial use and 239 for commercial and residential purposes. At the end of the year there were over 130 factories operating in the area. Further sites of various sizes are being sold frequently, according to a pro- gramme of sales. The number of workers in the area exceeds 19,700 and represents roughly 6.7 per cent of the total working force in registered and recorded factories and industrial under- takings in the Colony. More than 150,000 persons already live in the growing township and the eventual population is expected to be over 300,000.