Hong Kong Note Printing Ltd – over 320 million HK banknotes printed annually
HF: The following has been extracted from the Company’s history on its website (linked below). This material is copyright but can be copied for non-commercial purposes.
Its plant is at 2-4 Dai Shing Street, Tai Po Industrial Estate, Tai Po, HK.
In 1984 Thomas De La Rue PLC set up a banknote printing plant in Tai Po.
In April 1996 the Hong Kong Government purchased this existing factory, machinery and equipment through the Exchange Fund, and operated it under the name of Hong Kong Note Printing Limited.
In October 1997 the Hong Kong Government sold 10% of the Company’s issued share capital to each of the three note-issuing banks in Hong Kong. Namely The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Limited and Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited.
Present – The Hong Kong Printing Limited’s principal business is still to print HK dollar banknotes for the three note-issuing banks. Annual production volume exceeds 320 million banknotes. In addition, the Company prints small quantities of banknotes for Banco Nacional Ultramarino of Macau and endpaper of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Macau passports.
Courtesy: HKNPL
This article was first posted on 19th June 2015.
Related Indhhk articles: The Hong Kong Mint, 1866-1868
See:
- Hong Kong Note Printing Ltd website
- New Hong Kong banknotes to thwart counterfeiters … and promote Cantonese culture SCMP 24th July 2018
- Hong Kong history captured in old HSBC banknotes SCMP 23rd January 2019
I was a CAD draughtsman at the E&M main contractor for the De La Rue factory at Tai Po . The building was like a block with few openings. The walls are over a meter thick at some place. Openings for ventilation into protected areas are narrow silts a few inches high, so that the air ductings are similar and run at high air speed. Of course for machine rooms that would not be a problem but for any office inside, it must be quite noisy.
An interesting comment. In fact, I was the architect for the building (Russell/Poon Group Partnership) and am interested to see that a pic of the building has become their logo. The building’s design was really determined by its construction – concrete blocks within a vertical and horizontal R.C grid every 1 m or so. Each component part of the building had its own security rating and the thickness of the grid structure increased accordingly. The building won a certificate from the Hong Kong Institute of Architects in their annual Silver Medal Awards for excellence in architecture in 1986 or 1987. I designed a number of industrial buildings in HK but this was undoubtedly the most challenging and interesting one.