Economic activities on the island of Hung Heung Lo during the Jiaqing and Daoguang reigns could generally be categorised as farming, mining and fisheries.

The geological resource of granite bedrock provided opportunities for an export trade of granite slabs for building purposes.

Charles Gutzlaff, as Chinese Secretary of the Government of Hong Kong, wrote in 1846:“The only produce of Hong Kong, for exportation, is granite, and, though a very contemptible article, still it employs many hands, a great number of boats, each about 70 to 100 tons, and some capital. There are seldom less than a hundred of the above craft which monthly leave this island with a full cargo for the interior…”^[64]

As a result of these activities, a census report in 1841 put Shau Kei Wan as the second most populated township on Hong Kong Island, with 1,200 residents, with quarrying being by far the main occupation. The other quarry towns were Tai Shek Ha (大石下), with 20 residents, and To Tei Wan (土地灣) with 60 and Shek Tong Tsui (石塘咀) with 25.^[65]

However, the 1841 Census did not reveal the full extent of economic activities carried out by the locals in pre-1841 times. One good example is the village of Shek Pai Wan (石排灣), which reportedly consisted of only 200 residents when the British arrived. Official records as early as Kangxi (1662-1723) marked Shek Pai Wan as the place for exporting a popular incense called Guan Xiang (莞香) (Aquilaria sinensis), which was used as an air freshener in religious ceremonies and cultural festivals.

Over-harvesting gradually depleted the available local stock and exports finally ground to a halt. Shek Pai Wan’s position as a seaport consequently declined.^[66] A. R. Johnston, writing on “Notes of Hong Kong” in 1844, reported that Shek Pai Wan “appears to have been once the principal sea-port of the island [of Hong Kong], and to have been a more flourishing place than it now is.”

Elsewhere on the island, Chuck Chu was recorded in the 1841 Census as having a population of 2,000, and therefore considered Hong Kong’s capital city at the time of the handover. This population figure, however, was contradicted by another survey done by Baptist Missionary J. Roberts, who put the figure at 580 persons only. Roberts’s survey appeared more refined as he also recorded that eight out of ten Chinese males in Chuck Chu were opium addicts, reflecting the scale and pervasiveness of the opium problem in Chinese society at the time.^[67]One plausible explanation for the disparity of the figures could perhaps be the seasonal fishing patterns of the local fishermen, which might have altered the number of residents living ashore at any one time.

One important sector supporting the thriving export of these local products was the shipping industry. Business must have been brisk for shipowners based on both sides of the harbour as exporters totally relied on shipping to transport their products to the markets.