2
Consumers' co-operative societies continue to thrive
The Director of Agriculture and Fisheries, Dr Lawrence Lee, has expressed confidence that Hong Kong's consumers' co-operative societies would continue to thrive and serve the needs of their members in the years to come.
Dr Lee was speaking at the dinner reception held at a Sham Shui Po restaurant today (Saturday) to celebrate the 73rd International Co-operative Day.
As registrar of the territory's co-operative societies, Dr Lee said consumers' societies had had a good year with sales totalling $5.3 million and surplus exceeding $2.6 million.
Also on the urban co-operatives, he pointed out that civil servants' co-operative building societies had been assisted by the registration authority to transfer titles to flats and land to their individual members.
As at the end of the previous financial year, some 80 co-operative building societies had applied for voluntary dissolution. Of these applications, 48 societies have completed all the necessary formalities and are in the process of transferring titles to 871 members.
Apart from the 203 urban societies on the register, there are 64 farmers' and 68 fishermen's societies with a total membership of 20,227.
On the farmers' societies, Dr Lee was pleased to note that the two agricultural federations had continued to lead their member societies to work closely with the Agriculture and Fisheries Department (AFD) in promoting local pig and vegetable production during the past financial year.
"The 27 vegetable marketing co-operative societies handled a total of 106,000 tonnes or $468 million worth of fresh vegetables, representing 48 per cent of the Vegetable Marketing Organisation's throughput.
"They also undertook a number of infrastructural improvement projects last
year, which had benefited 188 farms covering 37 hectares of land.
"Their federation has also played an active role in establishing technical exchanges with its Chinese counterparts, and in encouraging member-farmers to participate in AFD's Accredited Farm Scheme," said Dr Lee.