ENG-1957 — Page 100

INDUSTRY AND TRADE

81

were the first real encouragement to local industry, enabling manufacturers to seek wider markets for their goods and attracting new investment. The first years of the Second World War provided additional stimulus, when locally made military and civilian supplies aided the Allied cause. It is estimated that in 1940 there were some 800 factories in the Colony.

-

Factory rehabilitation, after almost four years of enemy occupation, was rapid, impelled by an acute shortage of consumer goods throughout war-scarred South-East Asia. 1948, when the influx of refugees from China reached its peak, was a vital year for local industry. Most of the refu- gees arrived destitute, but many brought capital and technical skills, both of which found ready employment in Hong Kong.

When the Korean War and resultant embargo on trade in strategic commodities with China drastically reduced the volume of Hong Kong's commerce, only industrial expan- sion could offset the dangers threatening economic stability and provide employment for the greatly swollen and still growing population. Local industrialists reacted quickly to the new situation, and, despite difficulties in obtaining cer- tain raw material supplies, an increasing volume and range of Hong Kong products from many new and reinvigorated industries began to flow out to world markets.

Today, there are 3,373 registered and recorded factories, employing 153,033 persons in Hong Kong. A detailed breakdown of these figures will be found in Appendix II. The vast majority of these concerns are owned and operated by the Colony's Chinese residents. In addition a large number of smaller concerns, mostly pursuing traditional Chinese handicraft activities, in many cases set up by refugees, employ an estimated 200,000 people.

No special benefits are available to industry by way of income tax or import duty concessions. Apart from a few