TNAG-0385-FCO40-431-Trade-relations-between-Hong-Kong-and-the-EEC-1974 — Page 180

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HONG KONG STANDARD

4.10.73.

Massive trade drive in offing

as HK's exports soar

•

HKR. 63.

TDC PLANS TO OPEN UP E. EUROPE

DUNNING... new moves

HONGKONG is gearing for a massive trade drive in East Europe where the sale of the Colony's consumer products has risen by almost 300 per cent.

The executive director of the Trade Development Council, Mr Len Dunning, said yesterday that the Colony's exports to the region this year will amount to at least $42 million.

Last year it stood at $10.9 million, and in 1968 the year that saw TDC cautiously turning towards East Europe a mere $500,000.

Mr Dunning said: "We have set the scene for a considerable breakthrough in East Europe." He said that Czechoslovakia was planning to set up a special state trading agency to handle Hongkong trade.

Meanwhile, the TDC will

luiinch:

V

5-DAY exhibition of Hongkong goods in Budapest and Hungary next month;

AN accelerated promotion programme in Poland where the IDC last week attended the Poznan Trade Fair;

EXPLORATORY visits next year to Rumania and Bulgaria while taking part at trade fairs in Leipzig, Bruno, Poznan, Budapest, and Zagreb on regular basis with Hongkong traders; and.

#

AN INDUSTRIAL mission to East Europe to seek new sources of industrial input, like machinery and raw materials.

1 his many-pronged push into the East European market follows the formation early this year of a mulų-million dollar credit corporation by four

by

P. Viswa Nathan

Associate Editor

leading Hongkong banks finance Comicon trade,

to

The corporation Hongkong Fintracon Limited is owned by the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation 40 per cent and the Chartered Bank, the Hang Seng Bank, and the Bank of East Asia 20 per cent each.

Fintracon, according to a brocheure now being prepared for distribution, will extend short and medium credit to East European trading banks in most Comicon currencies to finance imports from Hongkong.

Until recently most of Hongkong's trade with East Europe was conducted through such switch-trade centres as Vienna, Hamburg, and Zurich.

However, Mr Dunning said, switch-trade might not be the most attractive course in the

for long run

it could increase unnecessarily

the landing price of Hongkong

East products in

European markets.

"We decided, we should make a direct approach, a course of escalation," he said.

The TDC began its Fast

1

European campaign first in Eust Germany, where it has been taking part in the Leipzig Trade Fair regularly since 1971. Since then Hongkong's exports to that country had risen from $103,000 in 1971 to an average of $2 million a month so far this year.

Judging from present truding patterns, the East European market will to become a major outlet for the Colony's textiles, which now face discriminatory treatment from Britain and the European

Economic Community as well as quota restrictions in the United States and other major markets.

Mr Dunning said, that 97 ner cent of the Colony k exports to East Germany so far this year had been textile products. Furthermore, while Fast Germany ranked as low as the 109th on the list of Hongkong's trading partners, it was now among the 20 major outlets for the Colony's textiles.

On the import side, East Europe

particularly Czechoslovakia

will progressively become the major suppliers of textile machinery and taw materials, in direct competition with Japan and West Germany.

Textile machinery imports from that country liave Increased from $1.4 million last year to $6.6 million between January and August this year.

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