ENG-1992 — Page 101

INDUSTRY AND TRADE

convention for the prevention of pollution of marine water by ships) to Hong Kong; and Air Pollution Control (Amendment) Bill.

Promoting inward investment in Hong Kong's manufacturing industries is another important area of the Industry Department's work. The department 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, involving the manufacture of polystyrene and compact discs respectively, 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 Hong Kong Government Standards and Calibration Laboratory 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 and informa- tion to manufacturers on both national and international standards affecting their products. The bureau also maintains a reference library of the national standards issued by Hong Kong's trading partners and the international standards published by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) and the International Electro- technical Commission (IEC). To improve the storage and retrieval of product standards information, a direct computer link with the databases of overseas standards institutions and a computerised information retrieval system have been established.

The Industry Department also operates the Hong Kong Laboratory Accreditation Scheme (HOKLAS), designed to improve the standard of testing and management in Hong Kong's laboratories and provide official recognition for those assessed as competent. HOKLAS has so far accredited 43 laboratories for testing such items as toys, textiles, electrical and electronic goods, food and construction materials. Several laboratories were accredited in 1992 in the important field of environmental testing. A number of important mutual recognition agreements have been concluded with overseas laboratory accreditation schemes, including the National Measurement Accreditation Service of the United Kingdom, the National Association of Testing Authorities of Australia, the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation and the Testing Laboratory Registration Council of New Zealand. Under such agreements, Hong Kong products may not be required to undergo further testing in these countries if they have already been tested and issued with a HOKLAS endorsed test report in Hong Kong.

Since March 1990 the department has been running a Quality Awareness Campaign, whose basic message, disseminated through quality management seminars and workshops, and through a range of promotional literature, is that investment in quality is profitable.

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