g.
CONFIDENTIAL
Whatever the eventual outcome of this study I think
such accountancy only part of the picture. Hong Kong
offers a market of about $2,200 m. a year for industrial
goods and raw materials which will rise fast; its
imports from China finance over one-third of that
country's imports from third countries including the
United Kingdom; it provides a trading platform on the
edge of the biggest country in the world and in the
centre of the Western Pacific, an area likely to
develop as quickly as any other in the next decade,
except perhaps the Middle East. There is a built-in
bias in favour of the United Kingdom. Consequently
United Kingdom exporters should be urged to pay Hong
Kong more attention as a market, as an entrepôt and
as a base for operations in the Pacific area, as well
as a shop window. For this reason, I attached great
importance to the visit in September of the Secretary
of State for Trade, who I believe left fully sharing
the above view. We have a vigorous and well directed
United Kingdom Trade Commission in Hong Kong, and
United Kingdom exportes ready to make the effort and
to assure the necessary supplies can expect all possible
official help from it.
CONFIDENTIAL