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BRIEF 4
UK EXPORTS
1
Despite its
Hong Kong is a valuable market for the UK. small size and population it is second only to Japan in E Asia, and our 20th in the world. For many years the balance of visible trade has been in Hong Kong's favour, largely as a result of a
until recently of British exports: relatively poor performance
-
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
£ million
1980 6 months
UK exports to
159.4
204.3
271.5 362.4 442.2
259.3
Hong Kong
UK imports from
Hong Kong
306.9
439.6
454.5 531.4 690.7
405.6
2
During the past three years, however, our exports made a marked improvement in many product sectors and we are beginning to recover a little of the ground lost to Japanese, American and EC competitors in the last decade. Further details are at Annex 1.
3
The renewed British interest in the market owes much to our recent success in a number of major projects, particularly the Mass Transit Railway (Metro Cammell and GEC) and work on the Castle Peak Power Station (GEC, Balfour Beatty).
4
Despite our improved export performance the UK has only a 5.2% share of Hong Kong's total imports half what it was a decade ago. Our main exports are in a range of machinery, transport equipment, power generation equipment and high quality consumer goods A high proportion of Hong Kong's imports is in basic food stuffs and raw materials where we cannot compete but the indications are that we have not taken as full an advantage of the dynamic growth of the market as our main competitors.