TNAG-0938-FCO40-1157-Visit-of-John-Nott--Secretary-of-State-for-Trade--to-Hong-Ko-1980 — Page 196

THE NEWLY INDUSTRIALISING COUNTRIES

Speech for the Secretary of State to deliver in South Korea

1. Introductory remarks7

The NICS as export markets

2. My predecessor as Secretary of State for Trade visited your

country in 1977. In that year your Gross National Product was

around $31 billion. In 1979, I believe, it will be a remarkable

$58 billion. This reflects the industrial growth which is

transforming South Korea into a major trading nation. You are a

prime example of one of the few economic success stories of the

1970's - the emergence of the so-called "Newly Industrialising

Countries". So, speaking in Korea, I think it is right for me to

say something about our attitude in Britain to this new and

important development on the international trade scene.

3. My starting point is that Britain, like Korea, is a trading

country. Exports provide some 30 per cent of our national income.

We export some $200 million a day. So we have a vital interest in

the growth of world trade and a special interest in markets like

your own, which are expanding faster than world trade as a whole.

In the first eleven months of last year, for example, UK exports

increased in money value by nearly 14 per cent. But our exports to

Korea grew by nearly 17 per cent. We had similarly above-average

rates of growth in/other NICS - nearly 26 per cent in Hong Kong;

some

and nearly 20 per cent in Mexico. Lookin.