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restricted. Many editors would use it as a reference source and perhaps, more important, a number of information and commercial counsellors in Embassies I visited had not had recent copies brought to their attention. If it reaches the desks of senior Embassy officials quickly I believe it will serve as a regular annual reminder of our problems and will be money well spent. Five hundred copies of the report should be set aside each year for distribution by air to European outlets. Distribution should be planned prior to the tabling of the report so that it reaches European desks within a few days of publication. Fifty copies, in batches of five or ten copies, should go to the principal Embassies in Europe, preferably with an accompanying personal letter from the Governor to the Ambassador with a request that it be channelled to his principal Counsellors. Four hundred copies should go to the T.D.C. for re-distribution immediately to their principal European press and trade contacts and 50 copies should go to the Hong Kong Government Office in London for similar distribution in Britain. But if they are to make an impact
speed is of the essence. The total annual cost to Government of this exercise including air freight would be less than the cost of a sponsored visit for a single traveller from Europe to Hong Kong, and would probably produce more measurable results.
65. There was a common feeling from both T.D.C. and H.K.T.A. officials in Frankfurt that we should be cautious of the dangers of 'over-sell' in stepping up the frequency of newsletters and press releases. I agree with this view but I do not believe we have anywhere reached this danger level in our distribution. A number of German papers publish regular 'economic news-briefs' from around the world. The "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" publishes every Monday two pages of overseas economic news and also a separate economic daily. They would welcome more economic news briefs from Hong Kong. "Handelsblatt" in Dusseldorf devotes one page a day to foreign economic news and also publishes a daily feature of economic news-briefs from around the world.
66. The economic editor could use a weekly airmail letter from the T.D.C. in Frankfurt for this column. I am not proposing that the 'Dateline' frequency be increased but the proposed government economic newsletter might be produced monthly so that it alternates every two weeks with the T.D.C. 'Dateline' - both being distributed through the T.D.C. An occasional letter in between to selected editors to include additional commercial news-briefs could meet the need of papers such as the two to which I refer. The asst. editor (economic news) of Handelsblatt, Lutz Beukert told me that the Taiwan office in Frankfurt are sending regular releases three or four times weekly to him and are making a point in his columns about twice a week. However, my impression is that generally we are doing a better publicity job in Germany than Taiwan, Korea or Singapore (which recently set up a special office in Germany because of the difficulty of working through their Embassy) but this should not inhibit us from watching their performance and adopting ideas in those areas in which they are operating successfully, if we are satisfied they can be applied equally to our needs. It is also worth noting that although Hong Kong has an 'expanding' trade image in Germany it does not have an unpopular image like Japan whose 'dumping' tactics have soured people against them. This despite the fact that Japan operates a vast trade promotion organisation out of
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