XN000022-1977-06-24 — Page 15

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"The attribute that Hong Kong is a 'captive' market still

unfortunately persists among too many British firms who seem to think

they need not bother to sell to Hong Kong that the customers will

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come to them. How wrong they are. What is doubly sad is that the

potential is so plainly there. How many businessmen in this country

I wonder realise that Hong Kong is actually our second largest market

in the Far East, after Japan here is a population of 4-1/2 million

taking about 200 million pounds worth of goods a year compared with

one in Japan of 113 million taking 350 million pounds.

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"If we had 11 per cent of that market once, my bet is that

with a really determined effort it should not be beyond us to

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recapture it. The auguries for 1977 do give us a little encouragement

in this direction the first quarter of this year saw an improvement

of about 50 per cent in our exports compared with a year ago, which

is at least welcome. I only hope this trend can be maintained,

although I don't under-estimate the difficulty of clawing back

business from one's competitors.

"If there are promising signs of a new interest in the

Hong Kong market among British firms, undoubtedly our success in

winning some of the major contracts for the new underground railway

has been a big contributory factor. Participation in such a prestige

project is in itself a great stimulus and can act as a catalyst for

marketing other goods and services.

"The extremely rapid development to which I have referred

should be a magnet for British industry, especially on the capital

goods side, but here again I have the impression that there remains

/an amazing