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COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSPORT
Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan and Israel. International direct dialling was initially introduced to four telephone exchange areas, but plans are now well advanced to extend the availability of this service to all areas.
Hong Kong's international telecommunication services are provided by Cable and Wireless. Services available include public telegram, international and local telex, international telephone, data transmission, leased circuits for private communication networks, international television and voicecast, photo-telegram and facsimile. These are provided via various communication systems, such as the international satellite communication system, submarine and land telephone cables, tropospheric scatter system, micro-wave and high frequency radio.
Automatic switching of telegraph and telex messages is provided by computers. The automatic telex exchange has a capacity for 10,500 subscribers. There were 7,147 sub- scribers at the end of 1977.
Civil Aviation
Hong Kong continued to play an important role in the world of aviation in 1977. Because of its strategic position at the hub of the South-east Asian air route network, the aviation industry contributes significantly to the general economy of the territory. During the year, passenger traffic totalled a record 4,899,000, of which about 65 per cent were tourists. This represented an increase of about 600,000 passengers on the previous year's figure.
Freight carried by scheduled and non-scheduled aircraft registered an increase of 6.5 per cent over 1976. In terms of value, this accounted for more than one-fifth of Hong Kong's total domestic exports, about one-sixth of imports and almost one-third of re-exports. In 1977, air-borne goods exported and re-exported were valued at almost $11,000 million.
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At the end of the year, some 30 airlines were operating more than 900 scheduled services each week between Hong Kong and South-east Asian countries, the Middle East, Europe, North America, Africa, Australia and New Zealand. In addition, about the same number of airlines operated non-scheduled passenger and freight services.
Hong Kong International Airport, one of the busiest airports in the Far East, was extended and further improved during the year to keep pace with the rapid growth in air passenger traffic.
A $300 million programme to improve passenger-handling capacity forged ahead. In mid-August, a new departure concourse was opened with two check-in islands providing a total of 48 check-in positions, each equipped with an intercom system and a built-in position for the security examination of passengers' baggage. These check-in positions are linked to a semi-automatic system through which baggage is channelled to a computerised sorting system in the basement that directs bags to a location designated for each flight.
A large number of immigration clearance counters was added to complement the extended processing controls for departing passengers.
This was followed by the opening of the new arriving passenger processing area at the extended terminal building in early September. Again, more immigration desks and Customs benches equipped with conveyor belts were brought into use to process arriving passengers quickly.