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publicly declared their determination to encourage British exporters to put more effort into this
market.
With their personal encouragement since they went back we have had a number of special visits from experienced exporters to look at selected sections of this market. So far they have covered the machine tool industry, structural steel, mechanical handling and general construction and there are more in prospect. There have already been 8 Trade Missions here this year, we have 9 more on the schedule and they keep being added to. Quite apart from the members of the Trade Missions there have so far been 400 British business visitors
who have called in to the Trade Commission and are therefore known to us, and probably many hundreds more in addition who have not found it necessary to call in
for our assistance.
And we are beginning to see the results. To take one of the specialist fields as an example orders worth HK$12 million for 2 major structural steel build- ings have been taken and the prospects for some HK$20 million in other buildings still in the design stage look good. There is now more inclination to think of structural steel instead of reinforced concrete, and if it is structural steel that is wanted then the British Steel Corporation is especially well qualified to supply it at a viable price. After all virtually all the major structural steel building at present in Hong Kong was built by British steel.
Our exports to Hong Kong measured in value of goods actually dispatched from UK are up over 20% on the same period of last year (they look lower than this in the Hong Kong figures but that is largely because of the time lag between "counting out" from UK and "counting in" to Hong Kong). That is'nt too bad for a start. Our aim is first to consolidate it through the year and, preferably, to improve it.
/THE BRITISH MOTOR SHOW
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