HONG Kong United Dockyards (HUD) believes the Government's restrictive policy on imported labour is too bureaucratic and inflationary. Company managing director Glyn Gough said HUD's dockyard, which had only 40 skilled tradesmen from China - less than four per cent of its total labour force - wanted more. ''We realise that there must be controls to avoid overloading the infrastructure of the territory and to ensure that the wages of Hong Kong workers are not depressed, but the dangers of an ageing labour force and continuing high inflation are not sufficiently recognised,'' he said. Although both HUD and Yiu Lian Dockyards had responded to the Port Development Board's recommendation that the Hong Kong ship-repair industry should expand by ordering new floating docks, they could not be run without labour, Mr Gough said. HUD recently ordered a $350 million floating dockyard which will be delivered and brought into service in early 1995. ''Who is going to repair and maintain the dredger fleet, so essential to the building of the new airport and most other large incoming projects, if we have not got the manpower?'' he said. Mr Gough said as many of HUD employees had 30 and 40 years service, it would be a problem replacing them with people of such vast experience when they retired. HUD employs about 1,100 employees, including five expatriates. In addition, the shipyard employs 400 to 500 contractors depending on work load. Mr Gough said HUD, which had more than 130 years experience in the ship-repair industry, could take in vessels measuring 250 metres. ''This capacity will increase to nearly 300 metres with our new dock,'' he said. YLD deputy general manager Yang Shi-lan agreed that his dockyard could direct jobs involving heavy steel work to Shekou. The shipyard, which has completed 400 of 651 metres of seawall, had repaired 10 vessels early this year, he said. The Nanhai No 4, a jack-up oil rig is presently undergoing a special survey at the yard. Mr Yang said YLD would bring its fifth floating dockyard, with a 1,800 tonne lifting capacity, to Hong Kong from Xiamen. The company, which had its order books full to September, was enjoying strong business this year times that a traditionally slow. Mr Gough said HUD also was enjoying a busy year and had docked 71 vessels in the first six month, with dock occupancy of more than 90 per cent compared with 86 per cent last year. ''Our harbour repair work was also up 38 per cent,'' he said, adding that this was particularly satisfying to the company as the international ship repair market had been quiet since mid-92, with other yards reporting declining results. Mr Gough said HUD, which had recorded 35 per cent of its marine work this year from dredgers, worked on ships from about 20 different countries annually, with China heading the list. HUD, he said, was a composite engineering company and did 40 per cent of its work on the land market last year. The work included the building of main tanks, mechanical, electrical and instrumentation work for the new chemical waste treatment plant on Tsing Yi.
