ENG-1991 — Page 111

INDUSTRY AND TRADE

Hong Kong Industrial Technology Centre, will be established as a statutory corporation, and will provide accommodation and services for established and fledgling technology- based companies. During the year the Provisional Hong Kong Industrial Technology Centre Company Limited, an interim body pending the establishment of a statutory corporation, began work on planning and developing the technology centre, which is intended to become fully operational in 1993.

During the year the Industry Department was actively involved in a number of environmental measures outlined in the 1989 White Paper on pollution in Hong Kong. Topics covered included the standards set in the Technical Memorandum under the Water Pollution Control Ordinance for effluent discharges into foul sewers, storm water drains, and inland and coastal waters; proposed controls under the Waste Disposal Ordinance on the handling and disposal of chemical wastes; and proposals for recovering the capital and operating costs of a Chemical Waste Treatment Centre. The department liaised closely with concerned industrial organisations to keep them fully aware of the government's proposals and to take their views into account when commenting on the implications of the proposals for Hong Kong's manufacturing sector.

The Director-General of Industry is also the Director of Oil Supplies, and the department began planning immediately after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 to prepare for possible oil supply shortages. In the event, oil rationing or other controls were not necessary, as Hong Kong's oil supply was not seriously affected by the crisis.

The department is also responsible for promoting inward investment in Hong Kong's manufacturing industries. It provides information and assistance to potential overseas investors in Hong Kong and through overseas Industrial Promotion Units based in Tokyo, San Francisco, New York, Brussels and London.

Much of the recent manufacturing investment has been from multinationals at the forefront of technological development, and this has helped to raise technology and skill levels in the local manufacturing sector. Two projects in particular, one involving the manufacture of semi-processed plastic pellets and the other the recycling of paper, were good examples of the introduction of state-of-the-art technology into Hong Kong.

In recent years an increasingly important part of the Industry Department's work has been to promote wider application of quality assurance in the manufacturing sector. The department has therefore developed a range of services to assist manufacturers to improve the quality of their products. The Standards and Calibration Laboratory, accredited by the National Measurement Accreditation Service (NAMAS) of the United Kingdom, holds Hong Kong's official standards of measurement, and provides a calibration service to manufacturers to enable them to meet measurement standards required for their products. The laboratory has measurement capabilities for a wide range of electrical, temperature, mechanical, pressure, volume and humidity measurements. A new laboratory is being built to provide a force calibration service for the construction industry.

The department's Product Standards Information Bureau provides advice to manufac- turers on both national and international standards affecting their products. To improve the storage and retrieval of product standards information, a computer-based linked to overseas databases has been established.

The department also operates the Hong Kong Laboratory Accreditation Scheme (HOKLAS), designed to improve the standard of testing and management in Hong Kong's laboratories. HOKLAS identifies and accredits competent testing laboratories, and has so

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