B
THE GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY
BACKGROUND NOTE
1. The General Electric Company is a conglomerate specialising in electrical engineering from power generation through consumer products to avionics, weapons systems and automation. Its chairman is Lord Nelson of Stafford.
2. The Company's most noteworthy recent contract is for the supply of power generation plant to the China Light and Power Company. Some $270 million are involved in this and the contract was placed with a British company as a result of personal discussions between Sir Laurence Kadoorie and the Prime Minister. The contract was not put out to international tender but instead GEC's quotation was submitted to the arbitration of independent experts. The Company are also in the running for the transmission phase of the expansion of Hong Kong's power system. Some £150 million are involved here and negotiations are currently proceeding between a merchant bank, Export Credits Guarantee Department and the Treasury on the provision of loan finance.
3. But GEC are as deeply committed to electronics as they are to electrical power engineering. In his letter of invitat ion Lord Nelson refers specifically to exhibits on Teletext and Viewdata. Both are systems for displaying information on a television screen. In Teletext the information is transmitted virtually "between the lines" of a television programme and the viewer is able to select from some hundreds of pages of information covering weather forecasts to stock market quotations. Viewdata is an interactive system; a television receiver is connected by GPO telephone lines to a central computer and the subscriber is able to use his television set as a computer terminal or as a means of obtaining reference information. developments are British inventions. Teletext has been pioneered particularly by the BBC and by ITV; Viewdata is the responsibility of the Post Office. GEC's involvement almost certainly concerns the use of advanced microelectronics techniques to shrink the electronics of the system from large printed circuit boards to small silicon chips. Their avionics, communications, and weapons systems expertise will stand them in good stead for this.
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