ENG-1948 — Page 78

INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION

The majority of Hong Kong's working population is engaged in occupations connected with commerce, fishing and farming rather than with industrial production but enterprise and capital are forthcoming when an economic demand for goods arises which can be satisfied by the expansion of local industry. There are local industries in ship building, ship repairing and engineering, and a wide range of light industries the main products of which are textiles, rubber goods, buttons, leather goods, cigarettes, matches, preserved ginger, tinned goods, glass ware and paint. Nearly all these light industries are Chinese-owned and managed.

While shortages of raw materials were for the most part over- come during the year (with a few exceptions, notably ship steel), increased competition in foreign markets and the change from a seller's to a buyer's market in most products made the year a difficult one for all but the more modern and efficient industries which have been able to bring their costs of production more into line with world prices and to maintain the standard of their product. At the same time the development of new industries, some transplanted from Shanghai, has continued apace. Cotton spinning has now fully established itself while metallurgical industries have considerably expanded, with the assistance in particular of machine tools delivered under the Japanese Re- paration scheme. Film production is now a major industry with seven companies in operation, although Hong Kong cannot yet claim to be the Far Eastern Hollywood. New in- dustries introduced during the year include plastics and the manu- facture of textile machinery and electric irons. Industries are tend- ing to develop on a larger scale than pre-war, and to be housed in orthodox factory type buildings rather than, as before, in

tenements.

The Chinese Manufacturers Union have shown enterprise and a close sense of co-operation during the year. A delegation was sent to the British Industries Fair at which Hong Kong exhibited for the first time and aroused much interest. A local Industrial Exhibition on an ambitious scale was held towards the end of the year with notable success. Over 600,000 persons visited the stalls during the fortnight, the record day's attendance being 41,000. While the spirit of the manufacturers augurs well for the future, and much has been done in the last year to modernise equipment, Hong Kong industry as a whole continues to suffer from its general obsolescence. Costs of raw materials, of labour and of power have remained stubbornly high and the long term future of industry in Hong Kong must continue to be regard- ed as obscure.

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