Manufacturing is the production of merchandise for use or sale using labour and machines, tools, chemical and biological processing, or formulation. The term may refer to a range of human activity, from handicraft to high tech, but is most commonly applied to industrial production, in which raw materials are transformed into finished goods on a large scale. Such finished goods may be used for manufacturing other, more complex products, such as aircraft, household appliances or automobiles, or sold to wholesalers, who in turn sell them to retailers, who then sell them to end users and consumers.

Manufacturing takes turns under all types of economic systems. In a free market economy, manufacturing is usually directed toward the mass production of products for sale to consumers at a profit. In a collectivist economy, manufacturing is more frequently directed by the state to supply a centrally planned economy. In mixed market economies, manufacturing occurs under some degree of government regulation.

The Rust Belt is a term for the region straddling the upper Northeastern United States, the Great Lakes, and the Midwest States, referring to economic decline, population loss, and urban decay due to the shrinking of its once powerful industrial sector. The term gained popularity in the U.S. in the 1980s.

The Rust Belt begins in New York and traverses to the west through Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, ending in northern Illinois and eastern Wisconsin. Previously it was known as the industrial heartland of America. However, industry has been declining in the region since the mid-20th century due to a variety of economic factors, such as the transfer of manufacturing further West, increased automation, the decline of the US steel and coal industries, globalization, and internationalization. While some cities and towns have managed to adapt by shifting focus towards services, others have not fared as well, witnessing rising poverty and declining populations.

The Manufacturing functional constituency was in the elections for the Legislative Council of Hong Kong first created in 1995 as one of the nine new functional constituencies under the electoral reform carried out by the then Governor Chris Patten, in which the electorate consisted of total 113,957 eligible voters worked related to the manufacturing industry.

The Constituency was abolished with the colonial Legislative Council dissolved after the transfer of the sovereignty in 1997.

Councillors represented

Election results

References