After the 1970s, Taiwan and Korea started to develop their spinning industries which posed competition to Hong Kong's spinners. The land where the spinners sat became more valuable which also attracted the owners to sell their land for profits. Spinning is a capital intensive industry. Most of the spinners need to have their own factories, which need dust and air-conditioning facilities. This makes it a costly exercise if the factory needs to move from one location to another. Central Textiles' factory in Zhanjiang only measured to 20,000 spindles, which worried Cheng as he was afraid it cannot withstand the competition from other mainland spinners in the long run.
The textile industry was first developed in Europe and USA, followed by Japan. Industries in Japan were strong, with good management culture and awareness. Goods were delivered on time and quality was good. These contributed to the rapid development of its society. After Japan, Hong Kong also started its textile industry, which spread to Taiwan and South Korea. During the 1960s, knitters dominated the local textile industry. Ha and his business partner started a small dyeing factory in Castle Peak Road. It started with dyeing business. They then bought machines and expanded to knitting synthetic fabrics because the manufacturing process was not difficult and easier for them to manage. As newer and more diverse fabrics became more complicated to produce, manufacturers needed to raise capital regularly to catch up on new facilities and new market. Money was also needed for expanding factories and updating machines. How to raise capital became an important aspect of the manufacturing industries.
Hong Kong's textile industry first started with mainly weaving factories, as the technology required was introduced here quite early. Dyeing technology also had a significant impact on textile industry. The progress made in chemical dye technology also drove the Hong Kong textile industry to change. In the earlier days, chemical dyes were imported from Europe. Yu Kam Kei's Cheung Wah Ho Dyestuffs Company and another agent Wing Wah Company were in the business of importing dyes and they made considerable profits. After the war, spinning became the major component of the local textile industry.During the 1940s, many Shanghainese entrepreneurs moved to Hong Kong after the liberation of China.They contributed to the development of the spinning industry here.Nan Fung Mill was such example. The company owned a lot of land for its factories. It later on became a listed company as a property developer. Other pioneers in the spinning business were TAL Group's Li Zhen Zhi; Winsor Industrial's Chou Wen Hsien and Peninsula Knitters Ltd's Tang Hsiang Chien. Pioneers in weaving were Lim Por-Yen of Lai Sun Garment which was in weaving and his wife U Po-chu's Bo Ngai Company which was in knitting business; Yangtzekiang Garment Ltd's Chan Sui-kau who started his company with weaving and knitting, and Esquel Group's Yang Yuan Lung who started at TAL Group but later developed his own business. And those in knitting were Law's Textile Industrial Ltd's Law Ting Pong who was in knitwear and knitting; Lap Shun Textiles's Law Siu Lun; Unison Knitting Factory's Ng Chong and Unitex Ltd's Chan Fok Hei.
Comparison of woven and knitted products. Local textile industry started with weaving business. It had a longer development while the development of knitting was shorter. There were pros and cons of both weaving and knitting. Weaving was a mass production industry, while knitting one could produce in a smaller quantity. Knitting could produce more diverse products, with sportswear and casual wear were popular among female and children. Woven wool fabric was part of the knitting business, with similar technology. In terms of warmth protection, modern technology has rendered both knitted and woven wool fabrics equally good, thus knitted fabrics have taken over wool's market place and drove down the demand of wool products. These days woven wool business is in its decline. Weaving used to be the major component of the textile industry but its importance has been taken over by knitting. Heyday of wool industry. Wool weaving started in the 1960s, with its most robust period in the 1980s to 1990s. Consumers used woven wool products as decorative items, such as shawls. Law's Textile founded by Law Ting Pong and Crystal Group founded by his eldest son Kenneth Lo were both large knitting and woven wool manufacturers. Since it took a long time for making profits from textile industry, some factory owners left woven wool manufacturing to other businesses. For instance, Jimmy Lai who used to be in woven wool manufacturing, left the industry and started his magazines and newspapers instead.
Hong Kong's large knitters started from the scratch. For instance, Texwinca Holdings Ltd started in knitting and then expanded into dyeing. It also runs Baleno which was responsible for retailing. On the other hand, Fountain Set (Holdings) Ltd started in dyeing and then expanded to knitting. Those large corporations which have vertical set-up were Unitex Limited (founded by Chan Fok Hei), Unison Knitting Factory (founded by Ng Chong), TAL Group (founded by Li Zhen Zhi), Esquel Group (founded by Yang Yuan Lung), Crystal Group (founded by Kenneth Lo) and Lap Shun Textile (founded by Law Siu Lun), etc. These big companies held a few 100,000 export quota on knitting products. Fountain Set specialized in processing for local garment manufacturers and did not export directly to the US so it had no export quota for its knitted products. Fabric export did not need any quota. So Fountain Set's fabrics were exported to Central and South America, as well as Thailand, etc. Ha Chung Fong realized that in order to increase productivity, the company needed to expand its sales force. Thus he set up sales offices in Seoul, Singapore and Shanghai so the company could sell directly to famous brands. His company also trained its own sales representatives, with their own sales methods. For instance, Fountain Set produced sports clothes for brands such as Li Ning, Sept Wolves and Anta, etc.
Au Kwan Cheung recalled that established before World War II and respectively producing the Chicks, 555 and Cicada singlet brands, the Chun Au, Chuen Sun and Lee Kung Man knitting factories were Hong Kong’s biggest brands at that time. As these were large-scale knitting factories which adopted a one-stop production mode, smaller squatter knitting factories had little chance of taking their orders. These long-established knitting factories imported high-quality cotton yarns from overseas and produced expensive knitted garments such as sweaters on old-type knitting equipment known as Granville Yankee machine. These factories seldom bought cloth from squatter factories to produce their brands. Most small local knitting factories only emerged after World War II. Many manufacturers came to Hong Kong from Guangzhou where they had specialised in knitting mass market mid- and low-end fabrics. Ultimately, only the long-established large factories could supply high-quality fabrics. Au Kwan Cheung’s father and his business friends were amongst the first manufacturers to run knitting factories in Hong Kong. As knitting machines occupied a small space, a 1,000-square-foot plant could accommodate two or three machines. Since weaving factories needed much more space, they were seldom operated in home factory style but mainly by manufacturers from Shanghai. Two notable early knitting machinery factories in Hong Kong were Fook Yuen and Tak Shing. Both of them were run by friends of Au Kwan Cheung’s father. Wah Luen and Wah Hing who came into the market at a later stage produced higher quality machines. Today, local machinery factories repair machines but no longer make them. In those days, most knitting masters began as apprentices because technical schools’ textile departments did not teach knitting technology. Au Kwan Cheung believed that one would find it easy to learn knitting technology but hard to be a skilled master as one needed to be a talent of machine.
Knitting factories in the 1950s mostly ran about 50-60 machines. With the local knitting industry taking off at that time, machines’ functions and outputs were constantly improving. Using only old-type machines, the squatter factory of Au Kwan Cheung’s father could barely produce 100 pounds or so of fabrics every 24 hours! Nowadays, modern knitting machines can produce over 1,000 pounds of fabrics within the same period of time! As old-type machines lacked automatic shut down function, they had to be deactivated manually. That was why the factories had to hire a worker to look after each machine. The old-type machine was found to be of inefficient, slow and labour intensive. For example, when a bundle of yarn thread was used up, it required someone to replace the empty bundle with a full one manually. If the machine went on knitting without one line of thread, the whole piece of fabric became defective. Au Kwan Cheung’s father focused on watching the old-type knitting machine he used in his squatter factory. Au Kwan Cheung’s mother helped by operating the yarn winding machine which fed small bundles of yarn threads into large twine balls so that Au Kwan Cheung’s father could replace the empty bundles with these twine balls on the knitting machines. Having a small capital, squatter knitting factories could only invest in buying machines, but not raw materials. Their mode of business was to take up orders from garment factories to produce cloth from threads, with the garment factories providing them with the necessary cotton yarns when orders were placed. Hong Kong already had a cotton yarn supply in the 1950s with Hong Kong Spinners at Castle Peak Road being a well-known local cotton mill. Operating a cotton mill involved a large investment, and required a big plant. Due to their low purchasing volumes, small garment factories seldom buy yarns directly from the local cotton mills, but usually through melange yarn companies instead. Melange yarn companies were cotton mills’ agents which broke up large consignments of cotton yarns into smaller batches for sale. After procuring their cotton yarn, larger garment factories passed them to smaller knitting factories for processing. Au Kwan Cheung’s father's squatter factory produced knitted fabrics which could be used for sewing elastic garments such as sports shirts and T-shirts. Depending on the technique involved, fabrics were divided into two main types – knitted and woven. Woven fabrics, such as twill, shirt fabric, corduroy and denim, do not require knitting by needles and are not elastic. Knitting and weaving are ultimately distinct technical skills that require specific types of machines operated by different sets of mastery skills.
Sham Shui Po was a centre of HongKong's garment industry in these early years and was home to many knitting, dyeing and garment factories. This concentration of companies facilitated the circulation of raw materials and products. Knitting factories supplied fabrics to the garment factories in the district and would mostly deliver smaller orders of two or three bolts of cloth by bicycle. Larger orders of around 10 bolts required a tricycle for delivery. The same applied to deliveries to further-off areas such as Tai Kok Tsui. In the past, there were many dyeing factories in Golden Arcade, most of which later were relocated to Tai Kok Tsui and then to Castle Peak Road and Wing Hong Street near to Mei Foo. In those days, dyeing factories ran their businesses from ground level premises and operated by receiving orders from garment factories for processing. As dyeing factories had hot water supplies, Au Kwan Cheung often went to a neighbouring dyeing factory on Fuk Wah Street for a hot bath during the winter. He was of Primary Five and Six at that time. Knitting and garment factories were more concentrated along Castle Peak Road. With the subsequent increase in their business, garment factories expanded in scale and gradually spread to Tsuen Wan and Kwai Chung. Following this expansion, knitting factories were moved out of residential premises and relocated to factory buildings for production. In the past, buildings on Fuk Wah Street were inhabited with both ordinary residents and manufacturing operators. When the government later enforced the fire safety regulations more stringently, factories were required to register and apply for operation licenses. The ground level premises of the buildings adjacent to the Au family’s home were all used as residences and changed to outlets or retail shops later on. Au Kwan Cheung’s father once had knitting factories at Sai Yeung Choi Street (near Wong Chuk Street’s Sham Shui Po section) and Fuk Wah Street. Both premises were operated on a “front-factory-back-dwelling” practice. When Au Kwan Cheung started his own business after growing up, his father's factory was inherited by the younger son. Remaining with the old style operation mode, Au remarked that the factory was not competitive and was finally closed in the 1980s.
"Between the 1970s and 1980s, the Hong Kong government had sent delegates to sit in different international business conferences and negotiate with the European Union and USA on textile quotas. The delegates were headed by Deputy Director-General of Commerce and Industry Department, who was Chief Negotiator. In those years Director-General of Commerce and Industry Department was a senior official of the same rank as today’s department secretaries. Commerce and Industry Department answered to the three Secretaries of the Hong Kong government. Both the director and deputy-director posts were taken up by westerners. WK Chan was most impressed by Lawrence William Robert as a leader of the delegates. Lawrence William Robert was Chairman of TDC afterwards. WK Chan regarded Commerce and Industry Department as a cradle of senior officials. Many political stars were once deputy-directors of Commerce and Industry Department, for example, Donald Tsang, Regina Ip, John Tsang, Michael Sze and Chan Cho Chak. When Commerce and Industry Department went for negotiations, members of Textile Advisory Board (TAB) were also invited to the meetings to provide immediate advice. TAB members were appointed by the government. They came from both the industrial and commercial sectors as the quotas were allotted to trading companies and textile factories in equal halves. One of the more famous members of the commercial field was Lydia Selina Dunn, representative of the Swire Group. She later held office in Legislative Council and Executive Council. She even became a member of House of Lords, thanks to Mrs Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Early TAB members representing the industrial field included YL Yang, Jack Tang, Henry Tang, SKChan, WK Chan, Francis Tien, James Tien, Christopher Cheng, John Chow, Lam Kan Shing, Kenneth Fang, William Fung, Frank Lin, Willy Lin, Andrew Leung, Stephen Cheong, Eleanor Wong and others. TAB was the first consultant body of Hong Kong’s industrial field. It had exerted a huge influence on government policies between the 1960s and 1970s. Quite a number of the then TAB members were now influential figures. WK Chan once represented the Macau government in quota conferences in the early period. The Macau delegates comprised of Susana Chou, Francis Tam, Sammy Liu, Victor Ng and others. They were now the upper class of Macau. Some of the representatives of Macau’s industries were recommended by trade unions while some were appointed by the government.
Textile quota conferences were convened by Asian export countries and European/US import countries. Official were sent for negotiations by different governments. Manufacturers from the export countries stood by to give advice. The negotiations were held between countries. The Hong Kong delegates played a leading role among the Asian countries. Many Hong Kong manufacturers had plants in Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and other places. Their representatives of the textile industry were mostly Hong Kong manufacturers. The quota conferences were in one way a meeting of Hong Kong’s textile families. WK Chan exalted colonial Hong Kong’s senior officials as outstanding negotiators. Examples included Tony Miller, Chan Cho Chak, Chau Tak Hay, Donald Tsang, Yue Chung Yee, Regina Ip. The Hong Kong government stuck to Bilateral Negotiation principles and demanded the USA comply to the GATT rather than bullying the Asian countries with her power, or else she should resign from GATT. Hong Kong’s senior officials made themselves equal to the US part. They once successfully turned down a request from US companies to inspect the factories in Hong Kong. The manufacturers acted as consultants during the negotiations. Many Hong Kong manufacturers had plants outside Hong Kong and were a good source of information for the government. WK Chan had high praise on the open-mindedness of Hong Kong officials. They followed the mainstream when collecting opinions and so managed to execute the final plan. In retrospect of the rise of Hong Kong’s textile industry after the WWII, WK Chan deemed the key factor to be the Chinese political turmoil. It caused an influx of capitals, skills and labours into Hong Kong, which formed the foundation of Hong Kong’s prosperity when circumstances arose.
Hong Kong’s textile industry grew strongly between the 1950s and 1990s which began to decline after 1997. When the government began introducing labour regulations such as limiting the working hours of female workers and prohibiting female workers from working overnight in the factories, Au Kwan Cheung began to hire men only to run his 24-hour operations. With the amount of loans too small and repayment periods too short for small and medium enterprises, Au Kwan Cheung felt that the government had not offer enough support for small manufacturers. Around 90% of local garment factories had already been relocated to the mainland where there was sufficient cheap labour to produce large quantities of garments. Dyeing factories had also been severely hit by the regulation of sewage management and other environmental protection measures in recent years. With operations becoming more difficult, most dyeing factories have now followed the footsteps of garment factories to move to the mainland. Dyeing factories that stayed in Hong Kong were mostly small-scale operations applying technology that remained at the level of the 1970s-1980s. As bleaching and dyeing products did not meet specifications and prices were quite high, business became very difficult. Au Kwan Cheung shipped most of his fabrics to the mainland for bleaching and dyeing only doing small amounts in Hong Kong occasionally. Garment factories which had already relocated to the mainland faced many import and export restrictions and complicated procedures. This was especially true when shipping fabrics produced in Hong Kong to China for bleaching and dyeing. In doing so, garment factories needed to apply for a “customs manual” for listing out the fabric types and quantities. As applying for a customs manual involved a lot of procedures, those garment factories who wanted to save themselves the trouble would simply subcontract the processing job to a mainland knitting factory which would work with a mainland dyeing factory. Such practices inevitably had adverse effect on Hong Kong’s knitting industry. The local knitting industry began to decline after 1997 and Au Kwan Cheung’s factory began losing money in 1999. Au Kwan Cheung estimated that the number of local knitting factories that were still in operation at the time of interview was less than 20, a drop of 95% from the industry’s peak. At present, Au Kwan Cheung’s knitting factory only took local orders. Following the footstep of local garment and dyeing factories’ relocation to the mainland, Au Kwan Cheung had tried twice to set up factories in China in the 1990s but both attempts had failed. What he did was like this: through the introduction of a business friend, he co-operated with an enterprise in Zhongshan to set up a knitting factory there in 1990. Sadly, he had no real control over the end-to-end production process and the business performance was poor. There were also accounting problems. Considering the factory to be unviable, Au Kwan Cheung gave it up within just two years. A few years after the failure in Zhongshan, Au Kwan Cheung tried again and set up a wholly-owned factory in Foshan’s Zhangcha District where there was a concentration of small local knitting factories. Relocating half of his machinery at Hong Kong factory to China, he tried to carry out production in both places at the same time. As he felt he was unable to compete with his mainland counterparts, he finally ceased operating the Foshan factory after four or five years. Au Kwan Cheung estimated that the success rate of knitting factories that had relocated to the mainland was just 30 percent. As there was an abundance of knitting factories in China, Au Kwan Cheung’s garment factory customers would not necessarily continue their co-operation with him after their operations were relocated to the mainland. The northward-relocated Hong Kong knitting factories did not really trust their new mainland masters. Many skilled masters went to work at their employer’s mainland factory. The monthly wage for these Hong Kong masters was more than $10,000 while that of a mainland master was just $1,000. Additionally, Hong Kong investors faced many restrictions to operate a factory in the mainland. They had to hire people to handle procedures such as setting up fire safety measures and reporting tax returns. As production costs were not much reduced due to the above complications, they were also less competitive than mainland’s individually-owned factories. Au Kwan Cheung observed that Hong Kong knitting factories were more experienced, understood customer requirements better and their knitted fabrics were more superior in terms of quality than that of their mainland counterparts. That said, most garment factories put their focus on price only. Although the quality of mainland’s fabrics was not of good quality, they offered lower prices and so many garment factories still found it more profitable to place orders with them. Au Kwan Cheung believed that the only advantage Hong Kong’s current knitting industry had was that the tax rebate on cotton yarns imported to Hong Kong made local grey fabrics cheaper than those from China. However, there was a lack of local dyeing and garment factories to carry out the necessary work processes. As a result, Au Kwan Cheung believed that if the policy and operating environment remained unchanged, the prospects for the local knitting industry were not optimistic.
After the Beijing pro-democracy movement in 1989, there was braver steps by the government to implement economic reforms and a faster pace to open up China’s markets. This had accelerated the movement of local garment and dyeing factories’ from Hong Kong to the mainland. In the past, smaller garment factories in Sham Shui Po carried out their production and sales activities upstairs in their workshops in residential buildings. When small factories’ production lines moved to the mainland, only the wholesale section remained in Hong Kong. At present, less than ten garment factories remained in Hong Kong. When the government required manufacturers to adopt sewage treatment measures in the 1990s, the local dyeing factories faced a lot of restrictions. This in turn prompted the northward relocation of the bleaching and dyeing industry. With the disappearance of local garment and dyeing factories, the knitting manufacturers which relied on them found it harder to survive after 1997. Faced with the trend of northward relocation, Au Kwan Cheung lost up to 90% of his customer base. At present, only around ten knitting factories remained in Hong Kong. Steadily losing customers, Tai Hing Knitting Factory reduced its labour force and stopped purchasing new machines. Au Kwan Cheung was finally forced to follow the trend and set up operations in China in the 1990s. Following the introduction of a business friend, Au Kwan Cheung’s first attempt was a joint venture factory in Zhongshan with a local entity. Due to differences of opinion with the local partner, Au Kwan Cheung gave up a year later as he felt the business was not profitable. He subsequently set up a wholly-owned factory in Foshan, renting a 10,000-square-foot plant and moving some machines from Hong Kong to there. While the bulk of Tai Hing’s manufacturing moved northward, the company still maintained some production in Hong Kong. As Au Kwan Cheung still had to take care of these Hong Kong operations, he was unable to manage both factories, finally closing the operation in Foshan. Requiring a hands-on approach to manage his investments in the mainland, rather than delegating the work to others, Au Kwan Cheung found it difficult to adopt Hong Kong style of management in China’s environment. After cutting the business in the mainland, his Hong Kong factory gradually shrank in size as he sold the machines off one by one. Even when his workforce was cut down to just three workers, Au Kwan Cheung still found it difficult for the operation to survive. At the time of interview, Au Kwan Cheung’s knitting factory continued with a small volume of production, producing fabrics only for local demand. This generally involved fabric samples in small quantities and urgent orders for under-layer and inner-layer fabrics, for example. As mainland knitting factories focused on mass production, they would not take up these small orders, leaving one last tiny survival space for local factories. In recent years, Au Kwan Cheung had stopped developing new fabrics. Lacking advanced machinery, it was difficult for him to produce these new products in larger quantity. South Korea and Taiwan produced a large number of new products and their exports to Hong Kong put added pressure onto local manufacturers. Lacking sources of raw material, Hong Kong could not compete with the imports from these countries. In addition, even if new fabrics were successfully developed, their design might also be copied for production in China. Even though he had launched several new fabrics, Au Kwan Cheung was unable to attract a good size of orders. At present, he just waited for fabric samples from customers, taking orders within his ability. In addition to maintaining a small production business, Au Kwan Cheung also provided intermediary services for the garment factories that had moved northward by liaising with mainland’s knitting manufacturers on their behalf for processing yarns into cloths.
The high cost of sewage treatment was only one of the reasons why dyeing factories had to shut down.In terms of environmental protection and social responsibility, though sewage treatment would add on the cost of production, China Dyeing Works was still engaged in better treatment of the sewage the company discharge. The cost of power was getting higher and higher. Before 2000, the company's production volume was high so sewage discharge was also high. The company believed it was still cost effective to treat its own sewage. However when production volume decreased, maintaining its own sewage treatment became less cost effective. China Dyeing Works had two options. According to the license agreement, if the sewage discharged was qualified to a certain standard, then the licensee can discharge a certain volume of sewage. For instance, if the COD of the discharged sewage was below a certain level, then the licensee would not be required to pay the sewage surcharge fee. But if the COD was above that certain level, then sewage surcharge would be imposed. China Dyeing Works had chosen to pay the sewage surcharge fee, as the company believed that it was more cost effective than running its own sewage treatment facility. Not far from Yuen Long Industrial Estate near the sea, there was the government-run Wang Chau Sewage Treatment Plant. It was a rather large facility. Since industrial production at the Industrial Estate has decreased, volume of discharged sewage also declined. The sewage treatment plant would sometimes work less than its optimum level during a week. The plant would be quite content to handle the sewage from China Dyeing Works. Since the treated sewage would be discharged to the sea through Hau Hoi Wan so decolorization involved would not be so vigorous. If the sewage was discharged to a river, then higher level of decolorization would be needed. Factory owners were supportive to environmental protection. But during the 1993 to 1994, most of the dyeing factories were not prepared to fulfill the environmental protection policy. In the 1950s and 1960s, factories provided employment to the locals so factory owners were praised as entrepreneurs. However, they were seen as polluter around 1993 to 1994. In order not to violate the law, many dyeing factories had to be closed or relocated away from Hong Kong. A retrospect of the development of Hong Kong's dyeing industry in the post-war period. Before 1972, and before Chan Kin Keung joined the business, he said he only knew that Shanghai industrialists came to Hong Kong because of the political change in China. Their arrival contributed to the development of local textile industry as they founded spinners, weavers and knitters as well as dyeing factories. The factories were mostly located at Tsuen Wan, Kwai Tsung and Kwun Tong, etc. Between 1974 and 1975 dyeing industry was in a slump but it rebound quickly. During the early 1980s, dyeing industry was in its boom but not many people in the business paid much attention to environmental protection. There was ample supply of workers but the requirement on quality of the products was not that high. At that time, manpower was important for the business but luckily there were a lot of immigrants from China and they provided a cheap labour force. At the end of 1980s, the government started to implement sewage discharge policy. At the beginning dyeing factories tried hard to cope with. Until 1990s when the policy was in full fledged, a lot of dyeing factories either had to close or move to the mainland. Those that moved to China could not survive for long. There were only very few dyeing factories left within the pearl delta area. After 1994, there were only a few smaller factories left in Hong Kong. At about the same time China Dyeing Works moved to Yuen Long Industrial Estate. It was one of the very few factories left in Hong Kong. Until 2002, the company was doing alright with its business. In recent years, oil prices continued to surge, pricing competitiveness continued to weaken and competition from surrounding countries posed imminent threat to local textile industry. Even garment factories could not survive in this weather. A lot of garment factories moved to countries with lower production cost, such as Cambodia, Vietnam and Bangladesh. Hong Kong Polytechnics also stopped its training courses of textile. China Dyeing Works understood that it had to change its business approach in order to survive.For instance, it commissioned some production to other factories so as to decrease the production level of its Hong Kong factory and thus cut cost. The government did not support manufacturing industry. It did not provide any assistance to the factories to better handle sewage treatment. Fuel prices were not coping with the changing circumstances. Together with the policy of high land prices, these contributed to the decline of dyeing industry. During 2001 to 2002, China Dyeing Works went against the Department of Environmental Protection in court because the company was convinced that the Department had procedural problem with taking samples of sewage. Eventually the court ruled in favour of China Dyeing Works.
Chi Woo Wha’s knowledge of other weaving factories. Elite Textile Co. had already closed down; Beautex Industrial Co. was a big factory. A Cantonese-run operation of a larger scale which produced mainly canvas, denim and striped fabrics, Sam Kwong Weaving Factory had ceased operation. Chi Woo Wha was more familiar with the Shanghainese factories. The Hong Kong Weaving Mills Association was formed by Cantonese manufacturers, whereas textiles associations (such as the Hong Kong Cotton Spinners Association and the Federation of Hong Kong Cotton Weavers) were formed by the Shanghainese textiles companies. Denim was first produced by Cantonese factories. As the yarn used to make this fabric had to be dyed before weaving and the condition of workshop environment and equipment were poor, the production of denim caused serious pollution problems. In those days, plants producing denim were mostly run by Chaozhou manufacturers. However the profit involved in producing denim was attractive. In the past, few Shanghainese involved in making denim, but nowadays many Shanghainese factories also produce this kind of fabric. Central Textiles’ weaving factory had committed to denim production for four years. In the period between 1950 and 2004, Central Textiles’ weaving factory had only made white grey fabrics, khaki and canvas.
Chi Woo Wha’s memory of other weaving factories, included Grand Textile Co., Nam Hwa Textiles Ltd., Prosperity Textile Ltd., Chun Sing Weaving Factory and Chung Nam Weaving Factory. Chung Nam was situated in Kwun Tong and was affiliated to Oriental Textiles Ltd., but ceased business a few years ago. Towel factories in those days were classified as a separate trade from weaving. Most towel factories were of smaller scale than weaving factories and used a different type of looms for production. Some weaving factories specified themselves in using electric machines as they were more advanced than the hand-driven looms commonly used in the past. Chi Woo Wha was not aware of the operations at Yau Tat Kow Kee Weaving and Dyeing Fty.
The situation at different factories.Liberty Weaving Factory had connection with Chou Wen Hsien. Chou Wen Hsien (the owner of the Winner Weaving Company) and Tong Ping Yuen (the owner of South Sea Textile Manufacturing Company) had made contribution to the development of Hong Kong’s weaving industry. Winner Weaving moved to Malaysia before 1997 but it ceased operation later on. Today in Hong Kong, Winner is running a garment factory but not weaving factory any more. The Lee Wah Weaving Factory produced denim in the early days while East Asia Textiles, Ltd. had a very old weaving factory which was no longer in operation. Mou Fung Ltd. was one floor above Central Textiles’ weaving factory and only produced denim. It is still running about 100 looms at a newly built plant in Zhuhai. Mou Fung has been operating for about 30 years and is probably the most famous local denim manufacturer in Hong Kong nowadays. Since China adopted the open door policy, many Hong Kong factories rapidly relocated to the mainland in order to reduce their operational costs. Some totally ceased all production in Hong Kong after setting up their mainland facilities. Chip Tak Weaving Factory no longer produced denim in Hong Kong , as it is now undertaking all its production in China. In the past, Chip Tak was better known than Mou Fung. Today, many textile companies no longer weave fabrics but just take orders and sub-contract production to other weaving factories. In the past, there was also a Shun Shing Weaving, Co. which also wove denim at the premise in Wing Hong Street near Castle Peak Road, Lai Chi Kok. This factory is already closed down. When Hong Kong’s textile industry was thriving, several officers from the South Sea Textile Manufacturing Company left the company and pooled capitals together to set up joint ventures of their own. While they had mastered textiles knowledge and technology, these formerly factory officers were not proficient in running a business. Tse Pui Weaving Factory mainly produced woven fabrics. Companies making knitted fabrics were generally called knitting factories.