Registrar-Generals-Department-Annual-report-1965-1966 — Page 11

tightness of credit was imposing on developers, announced on 3rd November that as a relief measure free extensions of building covenant periods would be granted in certain specified cases (see paragraph 49).

12. In spite of all these difficulties, however, the number of land transactions registered in the Land Office was at 44,857 the second highest figure ever recorded. These included 19,248 assignments, 7,303 mortgages, and 6,417 agreements for sale and purchase. The grand total of considerations expressed in all instruments was $2,806,098,000, a figure exceeded only twice before, in 1963-64 and 1964-65. There were substantial drops in the numbers of sales of Crown land from 153 to 29 and of regrants of land held on expiring or expired 75-year leases from 165 to 47, and smaller drops in the numbers of extensions of lots and exchanges, but grants by private treaty were at 91 well up on the previous year's figure of 43.

Companies, Trade Marks and Patents

13. For the first time in six years the number of companies incor- porated did not constitute a record, the total dropping by 134 to 1,286, with a more than proportionate drop in the total of nominal capitals from $1,366,000,000 to $707,000,000. This was due almost entirely to a sharp drop of 284 incorporations in the land and buildings category from 394 to 110 (capital $89,610,000), but for which the total number of incorporations would again have shown an increase. The drop in this category resulted in import and export companies taking the lead for the first time in many years with 327 incorporations (capital- $170,018,650). A feature of the year was the spate of incorporations of wig-manufacturing companies, 12 such companies being incorporated with a total capital of $4,030,000. This industry suffered a major blow, however, when the United States Government announced on 2nd November a ban on the import of wigs made in Hong Kong but containing hair from China. It was reported that this embargo would kill the industry and affect some 7,000 people directly connected and many more indirectly connected with it. At the end of the year there were 9,761 local companies on the register, and 567 foreign corpora- tions registered as having established a place of business in the Colony. Trade mark applications exceeded 2,000 for the third successive year, but the number was, at 2,054, 82 lower than the total for 1964-65. Patent registrations, however, jumped by 40 to the new record total of 286.

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