INDUSTRY AND TRADE
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The centre's activities are grouped under four main divisions, namely Manpower Development, Operations (which includes consultancy services for industry), Research and Administration. Its premises, in the heart of the business district of the island, comprise administrative and consultancy offices, lecture rooms, a technical reference library, a methods laboratory, a small workshop and an audio-visual studio.
The centre's courses, conducted both in Chinese and English, are designed for participants from various levels of technical and managerial responsibility. Training has been concentrated on financial, personnel and production management, the application of basic productivity techniques and sectoral production technology. Along with the development of this type of training, increasing emphasis has been given to vertical courses concerning advantages to be derived from increased productivity and the practical tech- niques available in limited fields of industry. The response to these training programmes has been growing steadily, and this has made necessary to establish a Branch Training Centre in Kwun Tong. An Electronic Data Processing Section was also recently established.
The Government has been for some years a member of the Asian Productivity Organisation. The present Deputy Chairman of the Productivity Council has been appointed by the Governor as Hong Kong's Director on its Governing Body and the Executive Director of the Productivity Centre is Alternate Director.
Hong Kong was represented at the 10th Workshop Meeting of directors of National Productivity Centres of the APO (at Bangkok in May 1970), at the 11th Governing Body Meeting (in Bangkok in February 1970) and at the 12th Governing Body Meeting (in Tokyo in August 1970). A 17-member delegation of senior rep- resentatives from Government, management and labour attended the Asian Productivity Congress (in Tokyo in August 1970) which was organised by APO as a highlight of the Asian Productivity Year. Other activities in Hong Kong to mark the Asian Productivity Year included the issue of special industrial posters, the production of a film on productivity, an intensified programme of training activities and the issue of a special APY commemorative postage stamp and first day cover.