Heavy Taxation Costs Deplored: $4.30 Per Share to be Paid This Year being held,-1145 am, this being upheld by Mr. stated that it would be far venient to hold the meeting at Conditions improved towards the Your company has had excellent eid of last year, and this improve. support "from the Chinese and for~ ment is being fully maintained during ign staft'at afl wharves and T hope the current year, It was reported by the small bonus "it fs considerably the chairman, Mr. W. J. Keswick, at Fedueed from former years) which the annual meeting of the Shanghai propose to give them -will have Hongkew Wharf Company, held Your" approval, it has been ade~ on April 28 at the offices of the gen-'Suately earned. eral agents, 27 The Bund, Other "Turning now to the accounts. directors present at the meeting were The drop in the balance. of working Messrs. Pan Ching-poo, Horace Account brought in to prof and loss Kadootle, D. Morison, Dr. A, Korff, reflects the adverse conditions and L, J. Davies, and 18644 shares Which have Just commented. You Were represented by the attendance, Wwill note that the directors' fees Tu his speech, the chairman said:
When I had the pleasure of address Baye Ree reduced which stu line uring these dificult times. Your it general of economy Ing you last year T warned you that 1936 had started off badly, and thus directors consider it Impostant that the result shown in the accounts may full depreciation should be. allowed not have been altogether a surprise to for despite the drop in earnings and you, T regret it compares unfavour-You will observe that our prop-ably with that of the preceding yea rules have been written down in the but it is better than your directors tissual qay before arriving. atthe anticipated, under the existing con-Dalance' of profit for the year. ditions: of the import trade, at the "Last year'T drew your attention to time when it was decided to pay no the reserve of $5000. for a debt interim dividend. Happily conditions owing by one of our large support-Improved considerably towards the fers since 1086, Bitorts to collect latter end of the year and T am glad fave, met with a disappointing Te-to be In a position to tell you that In sponse but we have made an arrange-thio current year the improvement is ment with regard. to regular pay-being fully maintained. ments "in. the future and. with, the [improvement in shipping business 1 Stalisties, with which I do not prow pose fo trouble you at length, show sincerely hope that this outstanding Will be liquidated before our next That the volume of physical imports into China of the major commodity fell in 1990 by nearly 50 per cent, as Sound Position compared with'1984 and 1995 and The balance sheet requires ttle were actually only about 40 per cent. explanation. as it follows the Usual fof the 1033 volume, It is gratifying {ines and discloses a position. which therefore that we have been able to T'think we may regard os being maintain our revenue as well as we feminentty sound, "The company Is nave done and this must be attri Strong in reserves and. you will see buted in no small_measure to the {hat the cash position is satisfactory. forward policy of building and the "The" balance at credit of prod Improvement of facilities "generally and loss Is. 29151015. Having' which we have carried through in mind improved revenues and. an the last fow years and which have adequate and liquid cash position been undoubtedly, consolidated our pos! your directors have decided to retion, commend drawing $80,000 from our "We handled practically the same equalization of dividends fund in number of ships in 1996 as we did order to pay a dividend of $6 per the previous year and our revenue share and I hope this will have your from this source, though it showed approval.
marked decline in the early part 'There being no questions, the fol-of the year, was fairly satisfactorily lowing resolutions were passed:—maintained " over, the period, Our storage earnings, however, were dis-poTadopted,"Shetthe sume' of $0pte be appointing as, we have been faced sais oF tape with een competition at cut rat angfefred, from allntons of ale vot "$6. be declared, ind the fairly active trading condl-"location of the. amount Uonis at the end of the year resulted recommended by the in quick movement of eargoes—quiek movement, I need not add, means loss oconcded by Hee. of revenue to us for storage charges.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.