XN000022-1979-09-17 — Page 11

N

-

technologists, technicians and craftsmen for the industry. At present, both the Hong Kong Polytechnic and two technical institutes are offering courses related to garment manufacture. Some of these courses qualify the students to sit for professional examinations conducted by the clothing

institute.

In 1975 the Government established by Ordinance the Clothing Industry Training Authority, which is empowered to provide courses for the training of workers at the operative level, and to collect..a levy on all clothing iteus exported from Hong Kong. This levy has been used to build, equip and maintain a training centre to train clothing operatives. The centre provides short training courses in sewing, knitting, linking, pressing, cutting and pattern making, and feeds annually about 4 000 well-trained operatives into the clothing industry. The training provided to the trainee is free and they receive an allowance of HK$50 per week. The centre also operates short up-dating courses for in-service supervisors, quality control inspectors and pressing operatives.

Although yours is a professional and technical body whose main concerns are with education and training, I hope you will allow me to take this opportunity to voice some views on other matters already affecting the clothing industry; and which have implications well beyond it.

-

In recent years the shadow of protectionism has lengthened over world trade. For almost twenty years the textile products sector of world trade has been governed by more elaborate and restrictive rules, now known as the ulti-Fibre Arrangement. The various justifications for the uncommon degree of protection these have accorded industries in the developed countries has undergone some mutation with the passage of the years. Its effects, however, have been consistent in one regard. With the exception of Japan, and that now to a diminishing degree, all the suppliers whose trade has been restricted have been part of the developing world.

These special rules specifically state their intention to be the

expansion of trade and progressive liberalisation, while at the same time ensuring orderly development and avoiding disruptive effects in both importing and exporting countries.

/But the.....