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Wednesday, November 21, 1973
HONG KONG'S TWO-WAY TRADE IN TEXTILES EMPHASISED
The Director of Commerce and Industry, Mr. David Jordan, today
deplored the inaccurate categorisation into 'exporting' and 'importing'
countries and emphasised that Hong Kong was an open market not just
a source of supply.
While Hong Kong was usually thought of as an exporting country,
he said, it in fact was an importing and exporting market like most
⚫ountries.
Mr. Jordan was speaking at the opening of the Textile Institute's
first Asian Conference at the City Hall which is being attended by about
250 delegates from 24 countries.
Hong Kong's exports of textile products were worth over 7,600
million Hong Kong dollars in 1972, but in the same year our textile
imports totalled about 5,000 million Hong Kong dollars, he said.
"And just as the value of our exports is going up again this
year, so is the value of our imports," he added. "Hong Kong is a market -
and an open one at that not just a source of supply.
Mr. Jordan drew attention to the emphasis put in international
discussions on 'disruptive' imports from 'low-cost supplies.'
He said it was a bit ironic to find that the developed countries
are themselves the principal manufacturers and exporters both of textiles
and clothing, and that by far the greater proportion of the world's textile
trade is conducted by the developed countries among themselves.
/In 1970,