ENG-1958 — Page 32

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HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT

In an address on 4th December, at the opening of the 16th Annual Exhibition of Hong Kong Products, sponsored by the Chinese Manufacturers' Association, His Excellency the Governor, Sir Robert Black, stated that the Government was studying the possibility of the formation of an Industrial Bank for the financing of industry in the Colony.

In the same address His Excellency also referred to the Govern- ment's intention to extend its statistical and market research services and so assist industry and commerce towards better plan- ning, to the opening in 1959 of another overseas Hong Kong Government Office in Sydney- which would supplement the services provided by the existing offices in London and Tokyo, and to the need for a Federation of Industries widely representative of the Colony's industry as a whole and able to speak with authority on behalf of industry as a whole. This question of setting up a Federation of Industries had first been mooted in 1957, and during 1958 a Government-appointed advisory committee was studying it and had reported by the end of the year with a firm recommendation in favour of a Federation.

For a number of years the Government has been seeking to provide more land for industrial purposes by reclamation schemes, the most important of which is at Kwun Tong on the eastern shore of Kowloon Bay. There, by the end of 1958, 64 acres had been reclaimed and seventy industrial sites had been sold on conces- sionary terms; on ten of these sites, new factories have now been erected, construction work has started on eight, and building plans have been approved for thirty one. At Cheung Sha Wan on the west side of Kowloon peninsula, thirty nine acres for a mixed residential/industrial area have also been reclaimed. At Tsuen Wan in the New Territories, twenty two sites in a new industrial area of about fourteen acres have been sold and seven of the sites developed. A further interesting feature of the Cheung Sha Wan reclamation was the provision by the Government of a five-storey 'flatted' factory with 470 units, each of approximately 200 square feet, to absorb small industrial undertakings cleared from squatter areas. This 'flatted' factory, which provides communal ablution and other facilities, was in full operation by the end of the year and other similar factories were under construction or being planned.