ENG-1969 — Page 44

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HONG KONG MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY IN THE SIXTIES

awkward and difficult sites. Cheung Sha Wan is no longer a lagoon of oozing mud circled by ramshackle boat and timber yards, but a rising town of humming factories. San Po Kong, formerly part of the old Kai Tak airfield, has been most densely developed with particular emphasis on high-rise commercially built flatted factories. Kwun Tong, still being reclaimed from the sea in 1959 with but a few isolated buildings, is a major industrial centre with a quarter of a million inhabitants, and an overflow suburb along the shore to the east at Yau Tong. At the eastern extremity of the island's urban development is Chai Wan, a completely new, small industrial town- ship on what was 10 years ago little more than a muddy bay. And factory and low-cost housing development in Aberdeen has given that picturesque town of boats and fishermen an entirely fresh aspect without destroying its individuality and links with the fishing industry.

Official assistance to industry in factory development has been stepped up insofar as Crown land zoned for industrial purposes may now be paid for by instalments over 20 years in Tsuen Wan/ Kwai Chung, Castle Peak and Sam Ka Tsuen as well as at Kwun Tong, and over two years elsewhere. In the urban area, it has been policy to make land available at auction in sufficient quantity, in the right mixture of large and small lots, in the right place, at the right time, and at relatively low upset prices to satisfy the competing and constantly varying demands of industry, an art in which personal judgement is likely to be at least as successful as the computer.

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The market for industrial land has been through a complete cycle during the decade. In the first few years, a period of rising demand, prices remained relatively steady, many lots being bought by genuine industrialists anxious to expand their operations or com- pelled to buy because the land which they occupied on temporary permit was wanted for other purposes. In 1964 premiums for land where labour and housing was readily available rose substantially, with considerable competition among industrialists themselves for choice lots and not always without a flavour of speculative invest- ment. But the bank closures of 1965 had a substantially depressent effect on demand and therefore on prices. The Government continued thereafter to auction industrial land to meet the relatively