From Transistors to Silicon: The Rise of Hong Kong’s Electronics Industry
If plastic flowers were the most colorful chapter of Hong Kong’s industrial golden age, electronics assembly lines were the quietest — and the one whose influence carried the farthest. In 1959, a transistor radio came off an assembly line in Kwun…
Hong Kong Watchmaking: From Contract Assembly to Independent Craftsmanship
The story of Hong Kong’s watchmaking industry doesn’t actually begin at the watch factory — it begins with the case and the strap. As early as the 1930s, a group of craftsmen with backgrounds in machining or metalwork were already producing…
Hong Kong’s Plastics Revolution: From Plastic Flowers to Precision Engineering
From the injection-molding machines of Sham Shui Po to the computer-aided design workstations of Kwun Tong, Hong Kong’s plastics industry compressed into less than thirty years a journey that took other economies the better part of a century. That…
Early Hong Kong Manufacturing Through the Lens of Food Processing
“Looking at Hong Kong’s early manufacturing through the lens of food processing,” the answer really comes down to three key words: entrepôt, imported raw materials, and flexible adaptation. Hong Kong was never an agricultural society,…
Hong Kong’s Shipbuilding and Repair Industry: The Manufacturing Power Behind a Port City
To answer the question “When did Hong Kong’s ship repair and construction industry begin?”, we need to look back to the mid-19th century. Hong Kong’s shipbuilding and repair industry didn’t emerge at a single moment out of…
Early Industry in Hong Kong: From Processing and Repair to Small-Scale Production
To address the question readers keep asking — “What early industries did Hong Kong have?” — understanding where Hong Kong’s industrial story begins means looking well before the light-industry boom of the 1950s. From before the Second…
The Origins of “Made in Hong Kong”: Manufacturing and Commercial Foundations in the Early Days of the Treaty Port
Where Did Hong Kong’s Manufacturing Industry Really Begin? When people hear the phrase “Made in Hong Kong,” most immediately think of the golden age of textiles, plastic toys, and electronics that ran from the 1950s through the 1970s.…