TNAG-0938-FCO40-1157-Visit-of-John-Nott--Secretary-of-State-for-Trade--to-Hong-Ko-1980 — Page 228

BRIEF NO 3

BRIEF

UK EXPORTS

1. Hong Kong Kong is a valuable market for the UK. Despite its small size and population it is second only to Japan in SE Asia, and ur 21st in the world. For many years the balance of visible trade has been in Hong Kong's favour, largely as a result of a relatively poor performance - until recently British exports:

£ million

of

UK exports to Hong Kong

159.4

306.9 439.6

1975 1976 1977 1978

204.3 271.5 362.4

1979 11 months

410.6

454.5 531.4

UK imports from Hong Kong

2.

642.3

During the past three years, however, our exports made a marked improvement in many product sectors and we are beginning to recover a little of the ground lost to Japanese, American and EEC competitors in the last decade. Further details are at Annex 1.

3. The renewed British interest in the market owes much to our recent success in a number of major projects, particularly the Mass Transit Underground Railway (Metro-Cammell and GEC) and work on the Castle Peak Power Station (GEC, Balfour Beatty).

4.

Despite our improved export performance the UK has only a 5.2% share of Hong Kong's total imports half what it was a decade ago. Our main exports are in a range of machinery, transport equipment, power generation equipment and high quality consumer goods. A high proportion of Hong Kong's imports is in basic foodstuffs and raw materials where we cannot compete but the indications are that we have not taken as full an advantage of the dynamic growth of the market as our main competitors.

UK EXPORT PROMOTION

5.

Major promotional exercises, such as the British Industrial Exhibition sponsored by the EOTB in March 1978 at which 140 UK firms were represented, have also helped to spread awareness of the opportunities. A growing number of officially-supported missions and British business visitors have visited the territory in recent years. Details of forthcoming missions are at Annex 2.