香港におけるプラスチック加工業の発達とその国際競争力

抄録

This report is part of the author's doctorial thesis ‘Study on the Industrialization of Hong Kong and the Analysis of its Factors (1965)’.
The full-fledged industrialization of Hong Kong as seen in the last ten years clearly shows a switch from the traditional dependence of the colony upon entrepôt trade to revolutional self-supporting industrial activities. This remarkable change has brought about a new main source of income, and at the same time, Hong Konghas become more dependent upon foreign trade than ever before. For the colony produces little raw material and its inside market is small. Accordingly, all the industries have assumed the form of processing trade and foreign trade has become the most fundamental condition for the industrialization of the colony. For instance, the exports are estimated at 80 per cant of Hong Kong's total industrial output. No other country in the world exports so high proportion of its output. And in 1961, of all the textile goods exported from developing countries, 14 per cent were from Hong Kong. Also, the exports of miscellaneous goods from Hong Kong represented 34 per cent of the total exports from those countries.
From these trends of recent years, Hong Kong is viewed as a country that typifies the combined development of commerce (trade) and industry, and also, a rapid increase in the export of manufactured goods shows Hong Kong's strong international competitive power.
The reason for taking up plastic industry here is that this is a new type of industry, and it has grown rapidly, establishing itself as one of the most important industries. Above all plastic flowers (made of polyethylene) have become wellknown as ‘Hong Kong flowers’, which have given a blow to the Japanese manufacturers of artificial flowers.
The author is going to analyze and explain in detail the development, location, actual condition of management, structure of trade and competitive power of plastic flowers in comparison with that of Japanese artificial flowers.
The results are as follows;
1) Most of the industries in Hong Kong are conducted on the basis of intensive productive labor. Plastic industry is no exception. The exports of plastic goods have remarkably increased in a short period and plastic industry has come to play a major role (Fig. I and Table 4). The outputs of items of this industry are varied. It shows diversified develoments of the industry. But since 1960, the plastic flower has become the most important item of all and it has occupied half of the total production of plastic industry.
2) The pioneering firm was established in 1947, but the actual production of plastic flower began in 1957. This was motivated by the introduction of the Hong Kong labor to the industry by an American merchant of keen insight. Of course, there was a concentration of the Chinese capital upon the new industry, too. The factories are mainly located in the urban areas in Hong Kong and Kowloon, but partly, they have advanced to the new industrial areas, such as Tsuen Wan, Kwun Tong and Sai Wan (Fig. 2). Such location is conditioned by the scale of firms-almost all the firms are home industrial (cottage type)-and it is based on the fact that capital, though small, can be easily procured and cheap supply of labor is available at any time. The number of workers in most of the registered factories is less than 100 (Table 3). The number of workers in smaller factories is not included in the official figures. The number of outworkers is not included there, either. Under such circumstances, it is very difficult to improve quality and stabilize market, and, what is worse, such a state has worsened, so that plastic industry is now a typical industry in Hong Kong that has both a strong point and a weak point.
3) The exports of plastic goods have remarkably increased since 1959.