End of an era: city's last cotton mill to close

The Tai Hing Cotton Mill was one of the success stories of Hong Kong's manufacturing boom in the 1960s and 1970s.

But like most others in the trade, the 57-year-old company has found it less profitable to operate here in recent years. Now the mill in Tuen Mun, the last of its kind in Hong Kong, has decided to leave the city next month. The firm is looking to move its production line to Southeast Asia. Many local rivals moved their factories out by the 1990s.

Unionist Leung Yiu-chung, who was the textiles and clothing functional constituency lawmaker from 1995 to 1997, said he expected it to be very difficult for the some 300 cotton mill workers to find new jobs because many were old and their skills were not needed in modern Hong Kong.

"It was a difficult decision. I felt I had no choice," said the company's executive director Clement Chen Cheng-jen, a former chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries, who did not allow the Post to enter the factory to film or interview workers.

"Operation costs are too high for our plant to stay here. We don't have to pay rent since we operate on our own premises, but costs on all fronts have been rising. Energy costs particularly have been a big burden because of the increasing mechanisation of the production mode."

The firm was founded by his father, Chen Yuan-chu, in 1957. Its office will remain in the city.

Chen said some workers would be transferred to other posts within the company, but he accepted others would be made redundant or retire.