182
COMMUNICATIONS
during the year and recruitment of suitable staff was begun while drafting continued of the necessary legislation.
A Port Welfare Committee ministers to the needs of crews of visiting ships and co-operates with religious and other organizations devoted to this work. The committee also administers the Merchant Navy Club in Kowloon. In 1965, $259,000, partly donated privately and partly from a government subvention, was made available for port welfare purposes.
The dockyards were kept busy during the year with new con- struction, repair work and conversions. They also carried out the numerous surveys necessary for ships to retain their classifications or to conform under international maritime safety conventions with the laws of the country whose flag they fly. These called for the constant, services of government marine surveyors and the surveyor representatives of Lloyd's Register of Shipping, Bureau Veritas, the American Bureau of Shipping and Det Norske Veritas. The largest ship ever built in Hong Kong, the China Navigation Company's Hunan, was launched by Taikoo Dockyard in October. The same dockyard carried out the conversion of a New Zealand ship, Maori, into a roll-on, roll-off car ferry. Considerable water- front extensions and covered berths were completed during the year by the Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock Company. The Hong Kong Registry of Shipping now lists over 500 vessels under the British flag, totalling some 852,000 gross register tons. Of these, 143 ships are over 500 tons gross.
Vast numbers of small craft operate in the harbour and create special problems by their density. There are over 20,500 vessels in this category, more than 7,300 of them mechanized. It is mandatory for persons in charge of mechanized craft to possess a local cer- tificate of competency as master or engineer and during 1965 new measures to control the large numbers of pleasure craft now operating in Colony waters were introduced.
A thriving trade continued with Macau and adjacent Chinese ports, cargoes being transported mainly by towed lighters or junks. Details of trade tonnage may be found in Appendix XXXVIII. A brisk internal trade is also carried on between the harbour area and outlying districts.