ENG-1960 — Page 251

LAW, ORDER AND RECORDS

201

There are now over 3,000 buildings comprising six or more units which have been alienated in this way on Hong Kong Island, in Kowloon and New Kowloon. At present the majority of such buildings have six units, but the scarcity of land for building purposes encourages a tendency to build much larger structures. Since the premium charged on a lease of Crown land is based upon a computation which assumes full development of land, the economics of building naturally accentuate this trend. This development has created a large number of problems, such as responsibility for maintenance of the fabric of the structure and of common parts and services and the problem is expected to become more acute. Government has appointed a Working Party to examine the difficulties which have arisen or are expected to arise, with directions to make recommendations for a solution, and at the end of the year their deliberations were far advanced. One result has been to realize how extremely small is the area of individual units into which some large buildings have been frag- mented. Some are as small as 520 square feet.

Another feature of development during the year has been the increase in the number of 'flatted' factories. This is of great_con- venience to the smaller type of industry which would not need a complete building for its own machinery and equipment.

The number of land transactions recorded during the year increased by 21% to the new record figure of 23,678. This increase is attributed mainly to the type of development which has just been described. The money which passed on sales of land aggre- gated $642,723,805, an increase of more than $200 million over the previous year's record total. $409,416,000 were advanced on mortgages of land, an increase of $77 million over the previous year. The average rate of interest charged on mortgaged land was 11% per annum.

Companies. The Companies Registry keeps records of all com- panies incorporated in Hong Kong and also of all foreign corpora- tions which have established a place of business in the Colony. Incorporation of companies in Hong Kong is effected under the Companies Ordinance (Chapter 32) which is based on the Com- panies Act, 1929, of Great Britain (now replaced by the Companies Act, 1948). Companies incorporated outside the Colony are required