ENG-1983 — Page 43

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INDUSTRY AND TRADE

factory operations. In addition, two industrial investment promotion missions, comprising officials from the department, visited Australia where they found substantial interest in Hong Kong as a location for overseas industrial investment.

The four overseas offices carried out a wide range of activities. These included arranging for groups of overseas industrialists to visit Hong Kong, organising and participating in seminars, attending trade and industrial fairs and visiting individual companies with an expressed or potential interest in Hong Kong. The offices are provided with back-up by the Industrial Promotion Consultancy Division of the Industry Department.

By far the largest proportion of investment in Hong Kong industry - between 80 and 90 per cent - is by local manufacturers and businessmen. The department therefore continued to publicise its industrial promotion services locally through local industry and trade associations, contacts with individual industrialists and a series of industrial investment seminars held in conjunction with the Chinese Manufacturers' Association of Hong Kong, the Federation of Hong Kong Industries, the Hong Kong Industrial Estates Corporation and the Hong Kong Productivity Centre. Several hundred local companies are registered with the department as having expressed an interest in co-operation with overseas firms. During the year, the department's promotional film, 50 000 Can't Be Wrong, was up-dated and a second film, entitled Two-steps Ahead, was produced. This new film aims to keep local manufacturers and businessmen abreast of the latest technological and other developments. As a result of these activities, the department received a continuing flow of industrial investment enquiries and was involved in 20 industrial investment projects, involving either direct overseas investment or co-operation between Hong Kong and overseas companies, which were successfully concluded during the year. The main sources of interest are the United States, Japan and Australia.

Although most industrial enterprises are Hong Kong-financed and managed, at the end of the year there were at least 531 factories either fully or partly-owned by overseas interests. These factories employed some 96 000 workers or 11 per cent of the total workforce in the manufac- turing industry. The main sources of such investments are the United States, Japan, Britain, Switzerland and the Netherlands. The principal industries involved are electronics, textiles and garments, building and construction materials, chemical products and electrical products.

The Hong Kong/Japan Business Co-operation Committee continued to work closely with its counterpart in Japan. During the year, it provided assistance and support to the Industry Department in organising industrial missions to and seminars in Japan.

Textiles and Clothing

The textiles and clothing industries are Hong Kong's largest, together employing about 41 per cent of the total industrial workforce and producing some 40 per cent by value of total domestic exports. The export performance of the spinning and weaving sectors improved significantly in 1983 compared with the previous year. Export earnings by the clothing sector also improved despite the continued enforcement of measures contained in the export restraint agreements which Hong Kong has negotiated with its most important overseas trading partners. Total domestic exports of textiles and clothing in 1983 were valued at $41,448 million, compared with $33,876 million in 1982.

The output of cotton yarn was 141 million kilograms in 1983, compared with 126 million kilograms in 1982. Production of man-made fibre yarn and cotton man-made fibre blended yarn was 27 million kilograms in 1983, compared with 27 million kilograms in 1982, and production of woollen and worsted yarn was three million kilograms, compared with four million kilograms the previous year. Most of the yarn produced was used locally.