ENG-1968 — Page 83

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INDUSTRY AND TRADE

Japan Productivity Centre. To ensure the maximum advantage to participants, classroom training was followed up by practical work on the factory floor wherever possible.

By the end of the year a number of consultancy projects were in hand. It is likely that this essential service to industry will be much expanded as further professional staff are employed.

Hong Kong was host to the eighth Workshop Meeting of the Asian Productivity Organization in February 1968 and was represented at the ninth Governing Body Meeting of the APO in Tokyo in May 1968. At that meeting Dr the Honourable S. Y. Chung, OBE, Director for Hong Kong, was elected first Vice-Chairman of the Asian Productivity Organization.

TEXTILES

The textile industry not only dominates Hong Kong's economy, accounting for 60 per cent of its domestic exports and employing 42 per cent of its industrial labour force, but is also a significant factor in international trade in textiles (see International Economic Relations below). In all sectors, the manufacture and processing of cotton goods predominate. The cotton spinning mills, operating some 770,000 spindles, are among the most up-to-date in the world. Cotton yarn counts range from 10's to 60's carded and combed, in single or multiple threads. Production of all counts in 1968 was estimated at approximately 322 million pounds, the greater part of which was consumed by local weavers. In the piecegoods weaving section, which has 23,700 looms, grey cotton drills, canvas, shirtings, poplins, ginghams and other bleached and dyed cloth and prints are the main items. Production of cotton piecegoods in 1968 was estimated to be approximately 780 million square yards. A con- siderable quantity of this was exported as cloth, but much of it was used by garment manufacturers.

The use of fibres other than cotton and new processes in the finishing and garment industries have assumed significance. Ten textile concerns are producing polyester-cotton and polyester-viscose yarn for weaving into shirting and other fabrics for which there is now a more rapid growth in demand than for comparable cotton products. The demand for woollen knitwear has continued to grow. The production of the woollen and worsted spinning industry goes