173.
a Trade Enquiries Division which puts buyers and sellers of particular products together through the use of a computer data bank containing data of over 20,000 local manufacturers and exporters and more than 90,000 overseas importers and buyers;
a Trade Directory and Reference Library which provides information to those who want to export but require general background knowledge;
trade exhibitions and overseas fairs which enable manufacturers who are at the stage of development when they have sufficient interest and product knowledge, production capacity and marketing skills to be able to compete with other international exporters to reach the markets of their choice; and
a Publications Division which publishes six major product publications to satisfy the needs of those manufacturers who wish to advertise their products in specialized trade journals. Each publication is designed to satisfy the need of a particular class of traders at a different stage of their export experience.
I stated in my report for the year ended 31 March 1979 that I had expressed some concern at the apparent lack of any meaningful attempt to evaluate the results of the Trade Development Council's trade promotional activities in order to ensure that the funds provided to it were spent to good effect but I had been advised that the results obtained by the Council were not quantifiable in any objective sense. The Executive Director of the Council however had advised the Government that whilst no objective quantification was possible a measure of effectiveness was the extent to which the trade services and promotional activities of the Council continued to be utilized and supported by the Hong Kong trading community. Applying this measure during my recent study which I confined to trade exhibitions and overseas fairs I have found that not all the Council's overseas promotional activities to which commercial participants were invited were fully supported. Verbal enquiries by my staff have indicated that in 1984-85 out of some 40 trade fairs and missions in which commercial delegates were invited by the Council to participate there were about ten where the Council, despite heavy publicity, had difficulties in recruiting commercial delegates.