TNAG-1607-FCO40-22122-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1987 — Page 23

Sir,

DRAFT SPEECH BY HON F K HU, OBE, JP LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 14 JANUARY 1987

-

Adjournment Debate on

Development of Industry in Hong Kong

I mentioned in my policy debate speech on 6 November 1986 that the manufacturing industry is still the backbone of our

economy, and that we should keep our manufacturing industry

active, progressive and in line with the trend of the world market in order to ensure a fair market share. I further pointed out that high technology would be the dominating factor and yet

this is an

area where Hong Kong is extremely weak in comparison with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore as we have not been doing enough research and development in order to establish

strong

refers particularly to our electronics

industry which is the second

the second largest industry in terms of export

value.

base.

This

a

Due

to

our

the weakness in our production of hardware and software, a high percentage of which has to be imported from

other countries, and

relatively high labour cost in this region, there is a tendency for our manufacturers to

to remove part

of their production lines. to China or to set up

up new production

plants there.

Many Japanese manufacturers started to diversify their production facilities to other countries ever since the steadily strengthening of the Japanese Yen from last year. Irrespective of the favourable investment environment in Hong Kong, Japanese

manufacturers have invested in recent years far more in South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore than they have in Hong Kong.

have manufacturers

increased their

same

our

At the

time

import from

South Korea and Taiwan. It is evident that heavy investment, active government support and joint efforts of public and private