CONFIDENTIAL
Colony buys $120m, (88, 30.)
Colony buys $120m, (28.3.) of electric generating and allied plant (e.g. boilers), $80m. (£5.5m.) of road motor vehicles, and $60m. (£4.1m.) of telecommunications apparatus. On the consumer goods side, woollen and worsted cloth to an annual value of over $100m (£6.9m.) is now being shipped to Hong Kong, and diamonds and precious stones to a value of about $90m. (£6,2m.), though the latter is a volatile business, and many stones come on consignment and are re-exported back to Britain at a later date.
Trade Promotion
The Colony has a very high standard of living for Asia, and the Board of Trade and B.Ñ.R.C. make continuous efforts to persuade consumer goods exporters of the value of the Hong Kong market. The first British Week in Asia was held in Hong Kong in 1966, and one result was that British clothing sales have more than doubled in the last three
Efforts are years and now total $18n. (£1.2) per annum,
now being concentrated on store promotions and on trade missions. This year one major store promotion has already been held in Hong Kong, and eight trade missions are due to visit the Colony in the course of 1969.
Anglo-Hong Kong Commercial Relations
With the free port status of Hong Kong, these are mostly coloured by what happens at the British end of the exchange of goods, Hong Kong is a confined community and such matters as quote disputes, devaluation, the defence contribution are widely discussed in the general context of
In the heat of these discussions Anglo-Hong Kong trade. importers not infrequently threaten retribution on Britain's export trade to Hong Kong, in retum for the injuries Bri tain is said to be inflicting on the Colony.
The Trade Commission has no evidence of these threats ever being carried out. It does seen however that in the past five years there has been an increasing tendency for Hong Kong to assert its commercial independence, and there seems to be a gradual decline in the willingness of inporting companies to buy automatically from British suppliers.
CONFIDENTI