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REMARKS BY REG HOLLOWAY, SENIOR BRITISH TRADE COMMISSIONER, AT THE JOINT BULLDOGS/BRITISH CHAMBER CHRISTMAS LUNCH AT THE FURAMA HOTEL, HONG KONG, TUESDAY 20 DECEMBER 1988
Welcome to this joint Bulldogs and British Chamber of Commerce Christmas lunch. Over the last few months at these lunches we have heard a number of Ministers reviewing the scene in Britain and underlining the vitality in the UK economy. Today I'd like to look briefly at the vitality of the British business presence in Hong Kong.
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There are a number of myths about the British presence. But I think in the last year we
that is the British business community have gone a long way towards exploding some of them.
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1987
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One myth concerns the amount of business that British companies are doing here. Last year
was a record year for British exports to Hong Kong with sales worth more than a billion
billion pounds sterling. The latest figures we have for 1988, up to the end of October, suggest we are on course for, or within about one percent of, a repeat performance.
It is interesting that we are maintaining this level of exports despite a dip in the supply of capital goods as some large contracts near completion. The reason is that a considerable amount of new business has been achieved. Which helps dispose of another myth: the erroneous idea that the UK is not generating new business in Hong Kong we are! It is showing up across the board and particularly in. industrial machinery, textile yarn and fabrics, electrical machinery
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and chemicals.
In all these areas we are selling significantly more and a lot of the new orders have been won by newcomers to the market. Many of you have helped these new people and are representing them in Hong Kong and China.
Apart from these agency arrangements, quite a number of the newcomers have opened their own offices here. The Trade Commission now has regular contact with about 400 British companies in Hong Kong and there are more than that. In the last year the Secretary of Bulldogs has been writing welcoming
welcoming notes to an average of five British representatives a month inviting them to join and telling them about the British Chamber of Commerce.
You are all, between you, forming something that has been lacking in Hong Kong: a distinct British business community. It didn't seem necessary in the past because of the connection between Britain and Hong Kong but clearly it is useful for British businesses to identify themselves in the same way as other national groups.
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