Jing Wah Garments Manufacturing (正華製衣)

York Lo: Jing Wah Garments Manufacturing (正華製衣)

Jing Wah Building in San Po Kong (Apple Daily) 

At 10 Sam Chuk Street (三祝街) in the industrial district of San Po Kong (新蒲崗), stands the 9 story Jing Wah Building. With around 96000 sq ft of factory and office space, the building was built in around 1965 by Jing Wah Garments Manufacturing, a leading manufacturer of shirts and garments founded in 1949 (although as a firm it was not incorporated until 1961). The exterior of the building features large Chinese signage alleged based on calligraphy by Jing Wah’s founder Chan Jing (陳正). 

A native of Sunwui prefecture in Guangdong province, Chan Jing came to HK at an early age and started Jing Wah after the war. The original Jing Wah factory was located at 35 Beech Street in Tai Kok Tsui (CMA Membership Directory, 1958). The firm manufactured the Cavalier brand of shirts and built the Jing Wah Building in the 1960s to house its factory.  Aside from Jing Wah, the building was home to many industrial enterprises over the years – both local firms such as Sam Lee Chuen (Wing Kee) Garment Factory (see article), Everfit Garment Factory (incorporated in 1968, dissolved in 1995), Princeton Garment Factory (劍寧製衣, incorporated in 1970, dissolved in 2009) and Continental Fashions (祥興製衣, incorporated in 1968, dissolved in 2004) and multinational firms such as the American firm Teledyne Semiconductor. 

Chan Jing and his wife Cheung Pik-ha (who died at the age of 67 in 1988) has 4 sons – Kwok Wing (陳國榮), Kwok Wah, Kwok Kwong and Kwok Hung and one daughter Yuk-ping, who married to Robert Van Yung (榮宇信), scion of the prominent Yung family of Wuxi. Since the early 1990s, Chan Kwok-wing has been listed as the responsible person for Jing Wah.   

Left: Jing Wah founder Chan Jing; Right: Jing Wah ad in the 1977 HK Directory published by WKYP 

In December 2015, the Chan family sold the Jing Wah Building for HK$350 million. The building was sold yet again in March 2017 for HK$398 million. 

Sources (other than those cited above): 

http://news.takungpao.com.hk/paper/q/2015/1204/3248556_print.html

http://wyq.jmlib.com/jmhq/listhq.asp?id=957

https://www.tradeeasy.com/supplier/139386/jing-wah.html

https://ps.hket.com/article/1724974/%E6%AD%A3%E8%8F%AF%E5%B7%A5%E6%A5%AD%E5%A4%A7%E5%BB%883.98%E5%84%84%E6%98%93%E6%89%8B%20%E5%8D%87%E5%80%BC8800%E8%90%AC

This article was first posted on 26th August 2019.

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