Return of the Manufactures, Mines, and Fisheries

The earliest government record on local manufactures is found in the Blue Book for 1849, which states that ‘A large number of Chinese are employed in their respective shops and houses, in the exercise of industrial trades and manufactures, and there are scarcely any ordinary wants of the inhabitants which do not meet with a ready supply within the towns’. In 1851, the returns lists out the number of establishments of a few industries. From 1861, the returns provide statistical data of manufactures in Hong Kong.