COPY
CONFIDENTIAL.
Sir,
33
ENCL.NO.1. (in desp.No.17 from Hongkong);
HONGKONG GENERAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE.
28th May, 1931.
I have the honour to state that the General Committee
of the Chamber desires to offer sone observations to the Govern-
ment on a subject referred to in the Report for 1930 of the
Honourable the Secretary for Chinese Affairs under the heading
"Factories". This report states:-
#
The import taxes recently imposed by the Government
of China may, temporarily at least, have a detrimental
effect on some of the local industries which formerly de-
pended on the China market. Goods manufactured in long
Kong are classed as foreign goods and taxed accordingly.
This has practically closed the China trade to local manu-
facturers and compelled them to seek markets elsewhere,
notably in the Straits Settlements and the Dutch East
Indies. It is too early yet to say what permanent effect
the new Chinese Tariff will have on Hongkong industries,
but one perfumery factory owned by a large Chine se depart-
ment store has been transferred to Shanghai leaving only
fifty persons working here instead of 400 as formerly".
In this connection I am to remind the Government of the
Memorandum (of which a copy was forwarded at the time) presented
by this Chamber to the Association of British Chambers of Commerce
in China and Hongkong at the time of the Tariff Revision Confer-
ence in Peiping 1925/1926, and particularly to the references
therein to "Hongkong's Claim for Special Consideration" and the
memoranda by the Chamber on the Tariff in relation to the indus-
tries of Hongkong and the need for the provision of bonded
The Colonial Secretary
Hongkong.
warehousās /