ENG-1963 — Page 283

LAW, ORDER AND RECORDS

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buildings was controlled by (inter alia) requiring moneys paid in advance for units in the building to be used for that building only. These measures no doubt had a salutary effect in checking over- speculation. The adoption by some banks of a tighter lending policy had the same effect, but even so there is obviously still a great deal of money available to finance attractive projects.

Land Office statistics for the year reflect prevailing boom condi- tions. The number of instruments registered reached the record total of 35,880 as against last year's total of 28,089. The total of consider- ations recorded was $2,716,797,635.00 including $534,076,897.00 passing on sales of flats and $1,089,608,929.00 advanced on mort- gages of land at an average rate of about 12 per cent per annum. At the end of the year the Land Office card index of property owners included the names of over 75,077 people, some owning several properties, others being merely co-owners of a small flat. A record number of 717 conditions of sale, extension, exchange, grant and re-grant of Crown land in the urban areas were put through during the year.

The Land Office maintains an elaborate card index showing the lot or section of a lot on which every building having a street number stands. The information contained in the index as at 31st March 1961 has been published in the 27th edition of The Street Index which consists of two large volumes, one for Hong Kong and one for Kowloon and New Kowloon.

Companies. The Companies Registry keeps records of all com- panies incorporated in Hong Kong and also of all foreign cor- porations which have established1a place of business in the Colony. Local companies are incorporated under the Companies Ordinance, which is based on the (now superseded) Companies Act, 1929, of Great Britain. On incorporation a company pays a registration fee of $100 plus $2 for every $1,000 of nominal capital. Whereas in the past joint enterprises by Chinese businessmen were undertaken mainly in the form of Chinese partnerships of the traditional type, Chinese businessmen have of recent years become 'company minded', and the numbers of registrations of companies owned by Chinese have been increasing greatly. Nowadays, most new enterprises of any magnitude are launched as limited companies. This is especially true of the building industry where it has become virtually the standard practice to form a new company for each