CHINA 



As new countries enter the frozen meat exporting arena, 

 and China amongst them, Hongkong, which has long been a 

 meat producer, may be expected to come to the fore. Last 

 year, for example, her meat product exports to the United 

 States of America were valued at £28,000, as against only 

 £15,000 in the previous year ; while she also sent meat to the 

 Philippines valued at £78,084, as against £96,762 worth in 

 1916. Frozen beef figured among her exports to the Philip- 

 pines, although this ceased with the rise in the exchange which 

 later eventuated. With the return of exchange to a normal 

 level, the comparatively low price of meats in the immediate 

 neighbourhood and the comparatively low cost of labour will 

 doubtless make it practically impossible for American packers 

 to compete with local interests save only in fine and special 

 products. 



The Hongkong Dairy Farm Company, Limited, for a con- 

 siderable period has been experimenting with the packing of 

 meats of different sorts for use in outports and aboard ship, 

 including the tinning of beef and various meat products. It 

 is now announced that the business has passed the experimental 

 stage, and that the concern is arranging to can meats upon a 

 large scale. Already the company has secured practically 

 entire control of the trade in hams, bacon, and similar goods 

 along the China coast, and its goods have been successfully 

 shipped to other parts of the world , including Great Britain. 



It has been found by repeated experiments that conditions 

 in the meat-packing trade in this field are vastly different in 

 every way from those in Europe and the United States. The 

 work done in Hongkong so far has been under the superintend- 

 ence of a British meat expert of many years' experience, and 

 practically every thing undertaken on the basis of British prac- 

 tice has been a failure there until methods meeting conditions 



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