ENG-1981 — Page 42

INDUSTRY AND TRADE

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interests. These factories employed 97 658 workers or 10 per cent of the total workforce in the manufacturing industry. The main sources of such investments are the United States, Japan, Britain, the Netherlands and Australia. The principal industries are electronics and textiles, although there were new investments in other fields including the light and medium engineering industries.

The Hong Kong/Japan Business Co-operation Committee continued to work closely with its counterpart in Japan in fostering friendship and understanding between the business communities of Hong Kong and Japan, and in the promotion of trade, industrial investment and other economic co-operation. Working through their three respective working committees on trade development, industrial development and communications, the committees organised industrial investment and trade study missions to and from Japan as well as trade and industrial investment seminars - featuring prominent speakers from Hong Kong - in several cities in Japan.

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The Hong Kong Committee and Japan Committee held their fourth joint meeting in February, 1981 in Osaka, to review the work of their working committees and to draw up plans for future activities.

Textiles and Clothing

The textiles and clothing industries are Hong Kong's largest, together employing about 40 per cent of the total industrial workforce and producing some 42 per cent by value of total domestic exports. The spinning and weaving sectors experienced adverse conditions in 1981, due to sluggish demand and strong competition. Export earnings by the clothing sector improved over 1980, despite the restrictive terms of Hong Kong's current bilateral textiles agreements with the European Economic Community and the United States. Total domestic exports of textiles and clothing in 1981 were valued at $33,590 million, compared with $27,793 million in 1980.

The output of cotton yarn was 126 million kilograms in 1981, compared with 164 million kilograms in 1980. Production of man-made fibre yarn and cotton/man-made fibre blended yarn was 39 million kilograms in 1981, compared with 44 million kilograms in 1980, and production of woollen and worsted yarn was 4.5 million kilograms, compared with 4.7 million kilograms the previous year. Most of the yarn produced was used locally.

The weaving sector, with 26 695 looms, produced 695 million square metres of woven fabrics of various fibres and blends, compared with 760 million square metres in 1980, The bulk of the production - 85 per cent

- 85 per cent - was of cotton. Much of the fabric produced was exported in the piece, but local clothing manufacturers also used large quantities of locally woven and finished fabrics,

The knitting sector exported 14 million kilograms of knitted fabrics – of which 26 per cent was of man-made fabrics or blended cotton/man-made fibres, and 73 per cent was of cotton - compared with 12 million kilograms in 1980. In addition, a large quantity of knitted fabric of all fibres was used by local clothing manufacturers.

The finishing sector of the industry provides sophisticated support facilities to the spinning, weaving and knitting sectors. It handled a large amount of textile fabrics for bleaching, dyeing, printing and finishing. The processes performed included yarn texturis- ing, multi-colour roller and screen printing, transfer printing, pre-shrinking, permanent pressing and polymerising.

The manufacture of clothing is the largest sector of the industry, employing some 286 229 workers or about 32 per cent of the total industrial workforce. Domestic exports of clothing in 1981 were valued at $28,288 million, compared with $23,258 million in 1980.