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W(B)L 51-7406
A.R.
?
CONFIDENTIAL
Textiles remain the mainstay of the economy,
employing 2/5ths of the industrial/workers
and accounting for about half the exports.
Electronics, toy, plastics and wig industries
are growing rapidly. Although Hong Kong
has been quick to diversify her industries
in response to limitations on her textile
exports, her capacity to diversify is
limited by the absence of natural resources,
the shortage of land, the preference for
small family firms rather than large units,
and the long term political uncertainty,which
has to some extent deterred the overseas
capital investor from starting up industries
in the Colony.
13. Hong Kong's principal export markets are
as follows:
USA
42 per cent
UK
14 per cent
West (Germany
7 per cent
Japan
Canada
Australia
3 per cent
3 per cent
3 per cent
1969 A.R.
Singapore
2 per cent
The US market is by far the most important.
40 per cent of Hong Kong's exports to the
USA were textiles, which accounted for 17
per cent of all US textile imports, nearly
as large a share as that of Japan
Although Hong Kong imports rather more than
she exports, having an adverse trade balance
of £116 million in 1969, she has a favourable
balance of trade with the United Kingdom.
Our exports to Hong Kong in 1969 were £88
million whereas we imported £125 million,
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