ENG-1980 — Page 20

REVIEW

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The sequence of events had unexpected and unforeseeable results for Hong Kong. As inventories became exhausted overseas - particularly in our major markets - and as the world slowly adjusted to higher oil prices, demand began to pick up. Hong Kong, with its low labour costs, an industry eager to get into its stride again and to diversify where necessary, snapped hungrily at the inquiries and orders that began coming in. And with that admirable resilience that Hong Kong has so often displayed in times of adversity, the clouds rolled by. The annual growth of GDP in 1975, which fell on a per capita basis to 3.9 per cent, snapped back again to 25 per cent in the following year. And GDP which had stagnated at $8,478 in 1975, surged forward to $10,651 a year later. Private consumption expenditure showed equally dramatic changes. In March, 1978, real wages were back at the March, 1973, levels, but now sharply moving upwards.

With the shrugging-off of recession came the impetus to devise and develop new products. The space age which had put American astronauts on the moon, had triggered a major interest in electronics and gave rise to a big upsurge of new products - into which Hong Kong's manufacturers and the same nimble-fingered workers who had put our textiles and garments on the shelves of the world's shops, eagerly plunged.

The alliance between the plastics industry and the electronics manufacturer spawned a variety of calculators, watches and components. More recently it has moved into TV games, burglar alarms, smoke detectors and more complex products. Today there are more than 1,000 electronics factories employing 90,000 workers and exports are valued at $6.5 billion. Plastics, always strong, grew stronger under the stick of overseas competi- tion and the carrot of foreign investment. More than 4,600 plastics factories using the most up-to-date equipment, built up exports to $3.4 billion. Watches and clocks, at first assem- bled from imported parts, but later fully-manufactured in Hong Kong, forged their way into prominence, with exports in 1978-9 leaping 55 per cent to $4.6 billion.

Changing Identity

This new boom was at the same time radically changing the character of the Hong Kong people. New influences from abroad, mainly from the ubiquitous television screen but increasingly from an affluent world-travelling population, were widening the horizons of local people. There were demands for more in terms of housing, welfare, health care and education. But also for better. And the change when it came was to be radical. It was also to challenge the basic traditions on which family life in Hong Kong had been built for generations. And with this change Hong Kong had to come to terms, sometimes painfully.

There were no riots in the 1970s, but Hong Kong found a far more demanding and assertive outlook among its young people. No longer was education a question of the three Rs, no longer children proverbial parrots, no longer teachers wedded to chalk and talk. There were calls for more quality, more self-questioning, more challenge, more depth and more precise definition. The incident at the Precious Blood Jubilee School was a straw in the wind. Students were no longer to be taken for granted and the traditional docility and diligence of school children were no longer the hallmarks of the rising generation. Young workers were equally more concerned about their rights and the obligations of employers and if wages were still keeping up with hopes and expectations, there was also a greater mobility in the labour force and a quest for jobs with more skill and responsibility.

New interests, a breakdown in old values, the urge to get away from cloying influences at home or school were to send young people out in search of new challenges in work and pleasure and a deeper commitment to life in general. The old stereotypes were changing,