4.
5.
To have the ear of key members of the British, Hong Kong and Chinese governments Senior level government contacts are relatively easy to establish and use IF:
the Executive Director and the others concerned have personal authority; and the British Chamber and its Executive Director enjoy powerful and active sponsorship.
In other words we must pick weil and ensure our most powerful members back our choice to the hilt.
If the British Chamber also has a clear mandate from an important section of the community and more general support based on the quality of its all round performance then its senior level access is assured and the arguments it wishes to put will be that much harder to resist.
To generate support from the business community for our objectives
This will be a function of the quality and relevance of the work we do/services we provide (objective 2) and, in particular, the effectiveness of our communications. The basis for a new communications campaign is outlined in 6 below.
6.
To overcome the ambivalence/lukewarmness of support on the part of many companies
This is manifest in the fact that, notwithstanding major "Hong Kong British" companies such as the Hongkong Bank, Inchcape and Swires having played key roles in bringing the British Chamber into existence, none of them have put their number one or two man here onto our General Committee and/or been prepared to offer high profile backing for the Chamber.
We believe that this lukewarmness extends well beyond the above “hongs” and that the main reasons for it are:
a.
b.
C.
d.
the feeling that an overtly pro-British stance equates to a lack of identification with the local community and therefore puts companies at a competitive disadvantage when marketing themselves in Hong Kong, hiring local staff etc,
failure to recognise the coming (i.e. post 1997) need for a strong, independent champion for British business interests:
a general disposition towards developing their business by direct action as opposed to cooperative effort;
our not as yet having asked them to adopt a more proactively positive stance.
We can overcome this lukewarmness/ambivalence by:
an intensive lobbying campaign directed at the top leadership of the "hongs" and other major British companies in Hong Kong to persuade them of the validity of the following propositions:
that with the impending change of sovereignty British business in Hong Kong will find itself operating in a foreign environment in need of a sponsor dedicated to protecting or furthering its
interests.
that the British Chamber needs to develop itself to the extent that by 1996 it can fulfill this function; and
that, with their support, the British Chamber has a workable strategy and the determination to carry this out....
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