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sheer size of Hong Kong's external trade: some 18 million metric freight tons now pass through the port annually, a substantial proportion of which is between Hong Kong and Europe. Hong Kong- owned shipping has also benefited, and here the considerable increase in new tonnage, as the volume of world trade has increased, has resulted in substantial orders for new ships being placed
with UK yards. The demand in Hong Kong for air cargo facilities is also high, as is the movement through Hong Kong of air-borne passengers. The air terminal now handles some 100,000 metric tons of freight and more than 31⁄2 million passengers a year, and this also brings considerable business to the UK (which, in addition to receiving landing fees, is also in a favourable position, by virtue of its control over landing rights, to further UK interests by securing reciprocal facilities for UK airlines elsewhere in the region).
6. Hong Kong's gross domestic product has grown rapidly in recent years (by some 6% a year on average, since 1969, in real terms), the present recession in world trade notwithstanding, and this has been accompanied by a more than proportionate increase. in internal (public and private) expenditure in the building and construction sector, particularly on housing, commercial offices, schools and hospitals. and the infrastructure generally. The specialist skills of foreign companies (including the expertise of overseas technicians) are in high demand for work of this
kind and UK firms have been successful on several occasions in securing some of the more lucrative contracts (including, for example, the largest contract for the Cross Harbour Tunnel project). With the economy likely to expand rapidly once the present world trade recession is over and with the public sector capital works programme having in any event recently been acce- lerated, the scope for further UK ventures of this kind appears to be widening. Indeed, against the background of the Hong Kong economy's undoubted resilience, the prospects for improving still further the UK's wider trading interests, both in Hong Kong and the region generally, are highly favourable.
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