Chart 5:
Wholesale, retail,
import/export trades,
restaurants and hotels
20.0%
Transport,
storage and
commun-
ications
7.3%
Financing,
insurance,
real estate
and
business
services
4.6%
Community,
social and
personal services
16.5%
1980
THE ECONOMY
Employment by major service sector
Wholesale, retail, import/export trades, restaurants and hotels 31.5%
Transport, storage and communications
11.6%
Others 51.6%
1999*
Financing, insurance, real estate and business services 14.5%
Others 18.3%
Community, social and personal
services
24.0%
48
Over the years, the distributive and catering trades, community, social and personal services, as well as financing, insurance, real estate and business services have become important employers in the services sector.
* Average of Q1 to Q3 1999.
The Manufacturing Sector
Manufacturing firms in Hong Kong are renowned for their versatility. The existence of many small establishments, connected under an extensive local sub-contracting network, has greatly facilitated producers to cope with variations in demand in the overseas markets. Furthermore, the increasing use of outward processing facilities in the Mainland has enabled Hong Kong's productive capacity to expand by multiples even amidst the local capacity constraint, and hence helped maintain the price competitiveness of Hong Kong's products. A predominant proportion of Hong Kong's manufacturing output is destined for export.
Apart from relocating the more labour-intensive processes to the Mainland, local manufacturers have also been striving hard to diversify their products and markets, in the light of the globalisation of trade and keener competition from other export producers. Moreover, productive efficiency and product quality have been continuously upgraded by incorporating better technologies, in a move to uphold competitiveness.
Within the local manufacturing sector, textiles and clothing remain the most important industries, notwithstanding a decline in their relative significance over the past years. Other major industries include toys and electronics, printing and publishing, machinery and equipment, fabricated metal products, plastic products, jewellery, and watches and clocks. Generally speaking, those manufacturing operations still left in Hong Kong are more knowledge-based and with a higher value-added content, along with continued mechanisation and wider application of computer-aided technologies in the production process.