ACTING AS A key entrepot for the Far East, Penang in the 19th and early 20th century flourished. The free port system that the British tended to impose in its port colonies in the region was the basis for the socio-economic structure that came to define the island. The trading grew to include the setting up of industries, such as tin smelting and the repackaging of commodities like rice and sugar.The revoking of Penang’s free port status in the late...
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