173.
You are saying then that the European Community, in the area
we are talking about, is moving forwards rather than backwards and
forwards on an acceptable base?
(Mr Checketts) Acceptable? The processes are pretty slow.
I cannot control them or influence them but they are certainly
process for involving European businessmon in these activities in
South-east Asia, though they are pretty slow and perhaps necessarily;
I do not know.
Chairman:
Let us turn our attention to problems associated with
investment.
Mr Hill
174. Mr Checketts, in your paper AS2, on page 5, you have a short
paragraph on investment. In what ways can HMG and UK industry and commerce
improve their assistance to the national development plans of ASEAN
countries?
(Mr Young) I have been working on this for some time, for some
years. There is a requirement for British industry to pay greater
attention to the aspirations of some of the development plans for Malaysia
and Indonesia, in particular, within ASEAN. We are apparently very
willing to sell but we seem less prepared than some of our continental
competitors in particular to go into joint ventures. This is what those
countries wish and we must recognise that fact. We must recognise that
in so doing, the investment which we make has to be phased so that
industry interests in the Uk are not penalised overmuch in the short-
term but have regard to the long-term requirements of British industry
and capital to grow overall. It has to be a phased procedure.
Notably, this was the case in textiles and it is a very important point
that we must not be left behind in making foreign investments. Perhaps,
whilst exchange control regulations were in existence, we got slightly
out of the habit of investing. That may be part of it, and there is
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