CO129-622-7 Department of Commerce and Industry- reorganisation and Annual Report 4-4-1949 - 20-2-1950 — Page 20

ANNUAL REPORT

I-General.

1. This report deals with the work of the Imports & Exports Department, from April, 1948 up to March, 1949.

4. Although the staff is now back to its pre-war strength, it has been working under great pressure, and has been much busier than was ever the case before the war.

3. The work of the department during the past year has followed closely the pattern set in the previous year; the drive against smuggling -both into and out of China-continued. The Smuggling into China (Control) Ordinance, which gave effect to the Sino-British Customs Pact of January, 1948, was passed in October, and has added to the duties of the Revenue staff.

4.

Trade controls were in force throughout the year, and there seems little hope of dispensing with the system of import and export licensing in the near future-but controls have been kept to as low a level as is compatible with the conservation of the Colony's foreign exchange resources, and of those commodities either on world alloca- tion or essential for local reconstruction.

5.

Revenue collected during the year amounted to some $48 millions, a fall of $9 millions compared with the year before, but still $7 millions better than the revenue for 1946/47.

6.

Despite the rapidly deteriorating situation in China, the volume of trade passing through the Colony was greater than it had been in the year before, and there was no apparent lessening in the prosperity of the Colony,

II-Trade.

7. The main features of the year were (1) The increase in the flow of imports from the U. S. A. ́ (2) The increase both in imports froin and exports to the United Kingdom. (3) The maintenance of the trade with China at about the same level as the previous year, in spite of the difficulties that country was going through.

8. Trade with Western Europe showed no sign as yet of a return to its pre-war volume, but trade with South-East Asia, Japan, and Korea, continued to improve.

9.

Towards the end of the year a beginning was made in trading with Communist North China, and there are hopes that this trade will prosper, although at the time of writing it is still on a fairly small scale.

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