44
INDUSTRY AND TRADE
include television sets and tuners, transceivers and computer memory
cores.
While the plastics and electronics industries illustrate some of the factors behind Hong Kong's striking industrial development, light industries of many varieties have continued to make steady progress. They include the manufacture of air-conditioners, aluminiumware, clocks and watches, cordage, electrical appliances and equipment, enamelware, food and beverages, footwear, light metal products, optical equipment, paint, vacuum flasks, and furniture and furni- shings.
HEAVY INDUSTRIES
L
Hong Kong shipyards are equipped to build ocean-going vessels of over 10,000 tons deadweight and also to construct and instal their engines. At the other end of the scale, pleasure-craft and utility vessels of all kinds including ocean-going yachts, vehicle and pas- senger ferries, sloops, cruisers, speedboats of wood and fibre glass, yawls and steel lighters are regularly produced for local use and for export. The traditional Chinese junk, slightly modified from the basic design used for many centuries, has also been exported as a comfortable and stable pleasure-craft.
Hong Kong has been among the world's leading shipbreaking centres for a number of years, although activity in the industry in recent years has not completely recovered from the 1962 depression. Much of the scrap obtained from shipbreaking operations is used in steel rolling mills which produce mild steel bars, window sections, angles and channels and other metal products used in building construction. The mills supply a large part of the requirements for the building industry, and in addition considerable quantities of rods and bars are shipped abroad, principally to South-East Asian countries. Several rolling mills produce brass and aluminium sheets and circles, most of which are used for the manufacture of consumer goods. The growth of the steel rolling industry highlights an im- portant feature of the present state of development of heavy industry. Hong Kong's separation from its principal markets is among the factors which have produced a concentration of resources on light industry, while heavy industry has developed only where a domestic market was available. Two relatively new industrial ventures illus- trate this point. The demands of the construction industry have