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The Hong Kong Government are procuring essential quantities of certain supplies including food agricultural requirements fishing and medical supplies soap clothing footwear household requirements newsprint
and other articles needed in respect of the period from the date of liberation until the late summer of 1946 (.) There will be no objection to
firms making arrangements at once to import supplementary supplies of goods in the above categories or supplies of any other description for resale (provided an import licence has been obtained) though it should be added that
in certain cases such as food and textiles they may not owing to shortage of supplies find it possible to obtain any supplementary quantities (.)
Internal distribution of supplies procured by the Hong Kong Government
will be entrusted to ordinary commercial channels (.)
A: It is necessary to establish exchange control in Hong Kong as else- where (.) To make exchange control effective it is necessary further to
introduce an import licencing system on the general lines of those in force
in the United Kingdom and in all colonial territories (1)
All importing and distributing firms should as soon as possible make
the necessary arrangements to resume their full activities in order to ensure
continuity of the Colony's supplies (.) It is possible that some commodities
may still be subject to bulk purchasing arrangements by the Hong Kong
Government after September 1946 (.) In that event the firms will be notified
in due course through Government channels (*).
TWO(.) For C in C. Hong Kong (.) Your DTO 121730 refers
C.6(Telegrams)
Copies to:
D.C.A.
D.E. (C.A.) D.D.C.A. (M.G,) C.d.4, 17(6) D.E. (C..)Reg D.D.F.MOV (M) Q(M) 9b (2) F.5(4)
Foreign Office Colonial Office
Burma Office Treasury
(Mr. A.L. Scott) (2) (Mr. T.W. Davies) (Lt.Col Chalmers) (Mr. H.J. Bentham) (Lt.Col.Wormal
(Mr.Johnston) (2) (Mr.Copleston)
(Miss Asche).
Ministry of Production (Miss Nina) (5)
Ministry of Food
(Mr.Jenner) (3)
28 Grovensor
St. W.1.)
Ministry of War Transport (Mr. A.G.Pockett) (2)
Board of Trade
India Office
(Mr. Willis)
(Mr. Crombie)
Department of Overseas Trade (Mr. J.H. Golsby)
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