ENG-1969 — Page 23

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Review

HONG KONG MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY IN THE SIXTIES

A DECADE OF PROGRESS

HONG KONG emerges this year from the decade of the sixties as it entered, surging forward at an increasing pace. It has risen to a place among the 25 leading trading countries in the world and in terms of exports per head of population is placed ninth. By any standards this is an impressive achievement for a territory of less than 400 square miles and four million people, situated half a world away from its major markets and blessed with no natural resources to speak of. The key factor in this development has been the growth and increasing sophistication of the manufacturing sector of the economy.

FM

The year 1958 was in many ways a most significant year for Hong Kong's manufacturing industry; it is plain now that 1968 was a year of even greater significance. Many suspected that this was so, but hindsight and the sustained surge of the economy on all fronts, but particularly of manufacturing industry, during 1969 have confirmed the rightness of this view. That surge has undoubtedly benefited from the notable buoyancy of world trade, but neverthe- less 1969 can be pin-pointed as a year in which manufacturing industry acquired a new dimension, in terms of production, of productivity, and of a new deal for its employees made possible by a more secure economic base and general financial structure. It seems therefore appropriate once again to conduct a 10-year review, to look at the changes between 1959 and 1969.

The Acting Governor, concluding his speech at the opening of the 27th annual exhibition of the Chinese Manufacturers' Asso- ciation in November, described the expansion of activity that characterised the year just past as based 'not on an unhealthy