CO129-623-2 Rubber Industry- report and correspondence on the labour situation 1-12-1950 - 31-3-1951 — Page 21

ليه

to suppose that the Hong Kong manufacturers have not aware of the posschrules f

already sounded the Commonwealth market. already gounded

India

herself manufactures rubber footwear in a big way.

(c) B.S.I. standards are already being employed in

Hong Kong in a number of industries. They have not

yet been applied to the rubber footwear industry,

but there is some doubt about the allegation that the

Hong Kong products are inferior to those of the

United Kingdom. A pair of children's rubber boots,

inspected at the Hong Kong Office, was obviously

superior, both in finish and design, to a similar

article which had been produced in the United Kingdom

and exported to Hong Kong.

(a)

We know of no

justification for the suffer

It is not thought that there is any truth in

the suggestion that H.M. Customs are favouring imports

On the contary

In fact, the import

from Hong Kong in any way.

of Hong Kong shirts has been held up very badly

owing to the rigid checking of the Empire content

for Customs purposes. Rather than waive their rules

be understand that

in this respect, the Customs have engaged extra staff

to enable them to speed up the costings of these

Hong Kong imports.

(e)

There is, of course, a trading season for rubber

footwear, so far as the retail trade is concerned.

The extent to which this affects the rate of manufacture

and export from Hong Kong is doubtful, but it is

likely that wholesale orders fall off in the summer

months as the importers become stocked up.

Generally speaking, we deprecate very strongly

these attempts on the part of United Kingdom interests

to hamper Hong Kong's trade. In this particular case

those efforts are short-sighted because Hong Kong's trade

in rubber footwear is by no means one-way; there is a

good deal of canvas used in this

for linings and

industry

uppers, all of which is believed to be imported into

21