174.
I have also found that during the three years 1983 to 1985, in order to generate interest amongst manufacturers and exporters to participate in the Council's promotional projects, the Council conducted a direct mailing campaign whereby copies of the Council's annual trade promotion programme were mailed to some 20,000 Hong Kong traders with a request that they should make enquiries about the fairs and missions in which they were interested. I have estimated that out of the 20,000 programmes mailed out in each of those years, the Council only received some 2% enquiries. The results of factory visits conducted by the Trade Development Council's Tsuen Wan Office of 5,000 (mostly new) manufacturers over a five-year period from 1980 to 1985 designed to introduce the Council's services to small factories also indicated that whilst interest may have been generated in some of the Council's services, a large number of the manufacturers had no immediate interest in participating in the Council's overseas promotional activities.
175.
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The inadequate support for some of the Council's promotional activities might be linked to the manner in which such activities have been selected and evaluated. Following the launching of the direct mailing campaign of the trade promotion programme in 1983, the Council conducted an analysis of the respondents by industry and by popularity of the projects. Of the 165 replies from various traders to the 1983-84 trade promotion programme which were received during the period March to June 1983, it was indicated that the Middle East was the most popular market - 50 firms out of 165 expressed interest whereas less interest was shown in the United States of America (USA). Industrywise, greater interest was shown in general products than in garments which ranked third. However, of the total expenditure of $46.8 million on trade fairs, missions and other promotional activities in 1983-84, $3 million was spent in the Middle East compared with $12 million in the USA, and industrywise garment promotion was the largest item of expenditure. In the 1984-85 trade promotion programme, the budgetted expenditure in the Middle East was 7% compared with 18% in North America. No similar analyses were made of the responses received in 1984 and 1985. I have also observed certain opportunities for improving the post-show evaluation process.
Whilst the Council has advised me that trade promotion is an on-going effort with emphasis on long-term objectives rather than immediate results, I found the evaluation was conducted at the end of each show and was usually limited to asking the commercial delegates to complete a questionnaire providing information on such immediate results as business gained and contacts made during the show, impressions of the show and of the Council's service and whether the delegates would participate the next year, and did not provide information which would facilitate a more systematic evaluation of the longer term effects of their participation.