ENG-2008 — Page 150

106 | Commerce and Industry

with 15 economies. In addition, Hong Kong initialled an IPPA text with Bahrain, Kuwait and Finland in 2005, 2006 and 2008 respectively.

Trade in Textiles

The global elimination of textiles quotas since January 1, 2005 has helped Hong Kong's import and export trade in textiles by creating an environment that encourages it to continue to leverage its expertise and immense potential to develop into a world-class logistics and sourcing hub for textiles. At the same time, Hong Kong continues to maintain highly effective origin control measures to prevent abuse and to safeguard the interest of Hong Kong's textiles trade.

Hong Kong continues to join hands with other WTO members and the International Textiles and Clothing Bureau to monitor closely the global textiles trade to ensure that it is fully and truly liberalised, and that it comes under the same multilateral trading discipline of the WTO as other sectors.

In 2008, the Customs and Excise Department carried out 46 348 factory and consignment inspections and 939 investigations to combat false declarations about the origin and value of goods and illegal transhipment of textiles. The department also conducted 1 051 'blitz' check operations on textile consignments at various import and export control points. It successfully prosecuted 718 companies and individual offenders, resulting in the imposition of fines amounting to $15 million. It operates a monetary reward scheme to elicit information on textiles origin fraud.

Trade in Strategic Commodities

The Trade and Industry Department maintains a comprehensive import and export control licensing system to monitor the flows of strategic commodities through Hong Kong. The system ensures that while Hong Kong has access to advanced products and technologies to sustain its economic development, it is not used as a conduit for illicit diversion of strategic commodities. The department also administers a permit system to monitor activities involving sensitive chemicals as required by the Chemical Weapons Convention. Hong Kong maintains close co-operation with its trading partners to keep abreast of developments in the international arena on strategic trade control matters, and to make sure that its control arrangement is complementary to those of its trading partners.

cases of

In 2008, the Customs and Excise Department investigated 251 unlicensed import and export of strategic commodities and prosecuted 59 offenders, resulting in fines amounting to $1.89 million. Goods valued at $322,000 were confiscated.

Customs Co-operation

The Customs and Excise Department plays an active role in the work of the World Customs Organisation (WCO) and the Sub-committee on Customs Procedures of APEC. It maintains close liaison with the WCO Regional Intelligence Liaison Office for Asia and the Pacific (RILO A/P) in Beijing. The department has seconded an officer to the Liaison Office to enhance the intelligence network in the Asia-Pacific Region.

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