TNAG-1158-FCO40-1438-Visit-by-Margaret-Thatcher--UK-Prime-Minister--to-Hong-Kong--1982 — Page 138

CONFIDENTIAL

at the Southwick yard. This cost £30m, £5m of which came from regional development grants and

£9m from Government loans. It was completed in 1978 and the workforce of the two yards were integrated at Southwick. The South Dock Yard was closed. Total employment today at Southwick is 2831 (December 1981) a net fall of only 75 since vesting. This compares with a fall of approximately 8200 (26%) in all BS employees on the North East coast

over the same period.

55

Intervention Fund

Since the inception of the Intervention Fund in

1977 to help secure orders the company has received

£44.6m in Intervention Fund assistance.

CONFIDENTIAL

10

6

Performance

Turnover

ye 31/3/80 ye 31/3/81

45,769

50,376

Trading Profit/

(Loss)

(5,865)

(11,542)

B

td

7

The company hopes to be not far from breakeven this

year.

Productivity

In common with other BS yards, productivity fell at A & P during the shipbuilding recession. This was particularly disappointing because the new covered hall was expected to raise productivity. Productivity has since recovered somewhat but the improvement shows signs of levelling off, whereas BS and A & P need to make further improvements.

Sir Yue Kong Pao CBE

Born 1918, Zhejiang Province, China.

He, along with C Y and C K Tung and Wah Kwong, account for approximately two thirds of the Hong Kong owned or controlled fleet. Most of his fleet