Fute
Foreign and Commonwealth Office London SW1
J Towlson
British Trade Commission
HONG KONG
Telephone 01-
Your reference
Our reference
Date
ENT
1 26
HRK 6/548/14
PA
21 September 1973
27.1X
LONDON CHAMBER TRADE MISSION TO JAPAN AND HONG KONG OCTOBER 1973
1.
I think you will be interested to know that together with Cherry Welch and our counterparts of the DTI and FCO Japan desks, I was invited to attend a briefing meeting given under the chairmanship of Sir Patrick Reilly, President of the Chamber and Chairman of the Mission, at the London Chamber of Commerce on 18 September.
2. The meeting was attended by most, possibly all, the Mission members as well as Michael Hernes who also spoke.
3. All four Government officials were asked to give a brief talk.
Miss Welch was asked to explain the economic scene in Hong Kong.
Mine was the political/constitutional aspects.
4. I spoke briefly on the following points. Firstly, that although a Crown colony Hong Kong is not a British commercial preserve. Secondly, that Hong Kong's size is largely irrelevant, that she imported from the United Kingdom in the first seven months of 1973 £72.5 million worth of goods as compared with the imports by the CPR of £41.9 worth. Thirdly, I discussed the irrelevance of 1977.
5. I also warned members of the team of the likelihood of their encountering wide-spread criticism both of the constitutional connection and of Britain's performance as an industrial power. There was not the time to go into any detail at all but I exhorted them to beat the drum for Britain and to refute unworthy and unrealistic criticism. I suggested to them that to do so was not only helpful to us nationally but helped them to get orders. By running Britian down by implication they did the same to their own companies.
6.
T
I was interested that both Michael Hernes and Jeffrey Hamm took this up and reiterated my points.
M A Goodfellow
Hong Kong and Indian Ocean Department
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