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COMMERCIAL AND ECONOMIC WORK (Contd)
b.
1.
The Hong Kong Electricity Co have announced plans to build a new power station on Lamma Island. This will give opportunities for the supply of coal handling and an overhead transmission link with Hong Kong Island.
There are even opportunities for the supply of British ships. An active representative of British Ship Builders is being installed in Hong Kong.
The Trade Commission have emphasised the key role of ECGD interest and backing for the financing of contracts which have already been won by UK enterprise. The understanding and flexi- bility shown recently by ECGD will be equally vital for future
contracts.
Missions Our predecessors noted that the Trade Commission were dealing with some 18 outward missions per year. There was some diminution in 1975 and 1976 when the figures were respectively 12 and 11. In 1977, however, the figure was 19 and the predic- tion for 1978 is once more 19, though 2 of these are unofficial (but will still involve the Trade Commission in a good deal of work). Of the 1978 missions, 8 are vertical and 11 horizontal. Ten are combined with visits to Japan and in some cases else-.. where and only 2 have Hong Kong as their sole destination.
5. Our predecessors commented that mission work was well handled by the Post; but that this work was time-consuming and eroded time available for initiative visiting. As an annex to their report they quoted from a letter sent by the Senior Trade Commissioner (STC) to the BOTB. This letter made the same point about mission work diminishing the visiting programme and ended by auggesting that missions should be kept down to 15 per annum. In addition, the Post argued that there should be more vertical than horizontal missions and that they should not be bunched in the months when the weather was fine in Hong Kong.
6.
The Post believe that the points made in the 1975 Inspection hold good today. We, in turn, endorse them.
While we concede that the large number of missions wishing to visit Hong Kong is an encouraging sign of British business interest in Hong Kong and one which the Governor would in general terms like to continue, we believe that there is scope for some dimi- nution in the number of official trade missions (i.e. those to whom the Post give full treatment) coming to Hong Kong. The Governor himself conceded this and recognised that the impact of individual missions was reduced if Hong Kong was over-exposed to them. More important, we believe that the missions could be more carefully aimed. The Post is already in correspondence with the Department on this issue and there is no need for us to
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