ENG-1966 — Page 87

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INDUSTRY AND TRADE

the Working Committee on Export Promotion Organization at the end of 1965, recommending the establishment of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, was accepted by the government and made public in February. The council was conceived as a statutory corporation under an independent chairman with two representatives each from the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, the Federation of Hong Kong Industries, and the Chinese Manufacturers' Association; other members comprising the chairmen of the Hong Kong Tourist Association and of the Exchange Banks Association, two senior government officials—-- the Director of Commerce and Industry and the Director of Information Services-and four members appointed by name. It would devise a policy and programme of promotion for Hong Kong as a whole, superseding the Commercial Public Relations Co-ordinating Committee and taking over the responsibility of the Trade and Industry Advisory Board for advising the government on export promotion. The report recommended that the council be serviced by a permanent secretariat under an executive director. The nucleus of the secretariat would be the staff of the Commerce and Industry Department engaged on export promotion work, and of the Public Relations Joint Committee of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce and the Federation of Hong Kong Industries. The council's activities were to be financed by subventions from the government, roughly equivalent to the existing support from general revenue for export promotion plus a levy on the value of trade imposed on the commercial and industrial community.

In order to make progress with the realization of these plans, the working committee recommended that it should be kept in being to supervise the creation of the executive secretariat and generally to prepare the way for the council. Following the acceptance by the government of the committee's recommendations, the govern- ment staff engaged on export promotion in Hong Kong, London and Sydney and the staff of the Public Relations Joint Committee in Hong Kong, New York, Brussels and East Africa were integrated into an interim organization, the Hong Kong Trade Development Office, established under an executive director. The Hong Kong staff moved into the ocean terminal in Kowloon. All necessary administrative work was completed in time for the office to open at the commencement of the new financial year in April. The