ENG-1957 — Page 408

HISTORY

353

that country was introduced on 8th July. In December the United States Government placed an embargo on goods destined for Hong Kong. This seriously affected supplies of raw materials essential for much of local industry, and led, for a time, to a serious disruption of the Colony's manufac- tures, with the threat of widespread unemployment. For- tunately, this embargo was modified by the introduction of a system of controls, which ensured supplies of these materials for legitimate use in the Colony.

In June 1951, as a result of the United Nations Resolution of 18th May, 1951, a complete embargo on the export of

complete_embargo strategic materials to China was imposed by the Hong Kong Government. This was a crippling blow to local commerce and the volume of trade in that year fell by over one million tons compared with the figure for the preceding year. During 1952 the United States Government introduced controls over imports of Chinese-type merchandise from Hong Kong, and even now commodities of this kind are admitted into the United States only under strict procedures designed to ensure that they are of non-Communist origin. The entrepôt trade with China, once the Colony's mainstay, has been reduced to a trickle, although the greater use of 'exceptions pro- cedures' in 1956 and the reduction in early 1957 of the scope of restrictions on exports to, China, designed to bring them into line with restrictions on exports to the Soviet Bloc, have brought a slight improvement. Entrepôt trade not involving China also improved, particularly re-exports of Japanese goods to South-East Asian destinations. The Colony has, however, been saved from economic disaster in recent years only by its enterprise in the industrial field.

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