Directory_and_Chronicle_1940 — Page 764

A382

NINGPO

The population of Ningpo is estimated at 260,000. There are a cotton mill, a match factory, an electric light company, a telephone company, a flour mill, two coal ball factories, three knitting factories, two cotton weaving and dyeing factories and two canned goods factories. A new stock-breeding school has been established at Fênghua (ft) by General Chiang Kai-shek at his personal expense.

There are ten middle schools (four of which belong to foreign missions) and about a hundred primary schools. In all educational institutions girls play their part and co-education is encouraged. There is no college in the port as yet. There are some ter Chinese foreign style banks; no foreign bank has ever been established since the opening of the port in 1842. Foreign business interests are represented in only four firms: Butterfield and Swire, Standard-Vacuum Oil Company, Asiatic Petroleum Company and Olivier Chine, but in all cases the local management has been entrusted to Chinese agents. All foreign business is now in the hands of Chinese agents, the last foreign agent having left the port in April, 1932. There are five main steamship lines, one of which is British, the rest being Chinese; and steamers proceed to and from Shanghai daily except on Sundays. Small launches ply regularly to inland places along the coast and to the Buddhist island of Pootoo, a well-known place of pilgrimage and where foreigners may spend holidays during the summer. The staple exports of the district are green tea, straw mats, straw and rush hats, samshu, bamboo poles, cotton yarn and vegetable medicines. The Ningpo Lakes are very beautiful and provide excellent shooting. There is a proposal to make San Men Wan (E) into a good modern harbour.

TRADE IN 1938

The year at Ningpo opened in an atmosphere of general uncertainty and anxiety due to the probable approach of hostilities from Hangchow and neighbouring districts. Shipping was subjected to increasingly strict emergency regulations during the year, with the port either partly or even completly closed to traffic. There was, furthermore, a large exodus of the population to country districts and to inland towns. As time passed, and with the fighting front apparently stabilised on the Ch'ient'ang River, the population generally and the mercantile community in particular became inured to the situation, with an obvious and by no means unsuccessful effort on the part of all to adapt themselves to the emergency conditions. As a result of excellent harvests, con- ditions in the rural districts continued prosperous, the maintenance of purchasing power in the rural districts reacting favourably on urban centres. The closure of normal trade outlets at delta and Lower Yangtze ports tended to favour Ningpo, the total trade of the port reaching a value of $62 million. According to Customs statistics, direct imports from abroad were valued at $1.2 million as compared with $2.1 million in 1937; coastwise imports of Chinese goods, $16.1 million as against $18.7 million; direct exports abroad, $4.8 million as against $26,000; and coast wise exports of Chinese pro- duce, $39.9 million as compared with $20.7 million. Under direct imports, kerosene oil fell from 6,446,263 to 4,728,127 litres; gasolene from 1,550,478 litres to nil; and liquid fuel from 2,556 to 1,115 metric tons. Sugar imports also declined in quantity from 49,750 to 18,765 quintals, and rice and paddy from 9,953 quintals to nil. Of coastwise imports, cotton piece-goods declined from 33,251 to 16,557 quintals. Tea, totalling 47,409 quin- tals valued at $4.7 million, comprised the entire direct export abroad, with coast wise exports of green tea totalling 49,124 quintals. The principal articles under coast wise exports of Chinese produce were mats and buntal fibre hats, both commodities totalling just over 1,000,000 pieces. Hemp fibre hats totalling 511,756 pieces as compared with 743,269 pieces in 1937: rush hats, 801,000 pieces as against 610,588 pieces; and hats, other kinds, 10,236 pieces as compared with 17,564 pieces.

Shipping, as already stated, was much restricted, steamers of Chinese nationality being suspended from the outbreak of hostilities. Foreign-flag steamers operating under General Regulations entered and cleared during the year numbered 597, with a total tonnage of 591,377 tons, as against 1,502 vessels totalling 2,196,257 tons in 1937.