7 July 1982]
(Mr Crowther Contd.]
THE INDUSTRY AND TRADE COMMITTEE
MR G T CHECKETTS, Mr R T Fox, MR P J GODDARD and MR A G B YOUNG
(Mr Checketts.) I think there are certain aspects of this which it would be counter- productive to publish.
156. I am grateful for your frankness. No doubt it may be possible for us to receive information confidentially.
(Mr Checketts.) Certainly.
157. Can we have a word now about the ECGD performance. Do you feel the ECGD is, in fact, competitive with similar agencies in other countries or are there points at which British industry may not be getting quite as good a deal?
(Mr Checketts.) If I may duck this one and let my two financial colleagues make an
answer.
(Mr Fox.) I think the quick answer to that is, yes, if pressed but one does feel all the time with the ECGD it is up to the customer to make the running, to produce proof of what other people are offering and so on. We are always striking second rather than hitting first, as I was saying before. But I think the facilities that are available from ECGD, if we dig very deeply, are a very good facility. I think we still have some problems, particularly related to ASEAN and their knowledge of the area. They are in my view over-concerned about the pri- vate sector in Indonesia, for example, and, not only that. are also under-informed. They will not take any private sector risk in Indonesia and that produces some very difficult situations, as you can imagine, where you are trying to persuade people to be guaranteed by their state bank. They say "Everyone is offering us this up state bank and the answer is we do not do business with the British". We have certainly had a situation where we were going to sell some British aircraft, for example, to Indonesia and that undoubtedly would have gone through, but ECGD did not think British aircraft in Indonesia were security they would take and there had to be an outside guarantee the aircraft would first be flown to Singapore and they would take security in Singapore but not in Indonesia. It is that sort of thing that is very, very difficult indeed to overcome as a practical matter of course and is rather insulting occasionally, as you can imagine.
Chairman
158. Time begins to press on all of us. We have quite a number of points to put to you which I am sure you would wish to
[Continued
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answer in some depth. It seems to me it would be an appropriate time to have a break but I hope you would be able to come back on, say, the 28th July. It would help us if you could do that, I think perhaps an hour or an hour and a half would see us through. In the meantime are there any other general points you would wish to make to leave with us before we do meet again with regard to trading in this particu- lar area?
(Mr Checketts.) I have one. There was talk this morning of the knowledge of BOTB services around Britain. Part of SEATAG's job is, when we hold a seminar in Aberdeen or elsewhere, is to hold up this book. (Indicating) I wonder how many of you have seen it and if not can I suggest you obtain a copy and leave it in you constitu- encies?
159. We have seen it and a lot of other things as well. We did take an enormous amount of evidence on the general subject of imports and exports some years back now. We have copies of that. In fact all Members of Parliament are allocated that literature.
(Mr Checketts.) But it is the companies in your constituencies who may not have seen it in such depth as you have and that is the point.
Sir Peter Emery
160. Are you saying that industry on the whole does not understand what is in that book? That seemed to me to be the gravamen of your statement. Do you be- lieve that more could be done by the Department of Trade to ensure that indus- try understands what is in there?
(Mr Checketts.) I would like to say this was discussed at the last meeting of the trade advisory group as recently as two or three weeks ago and it is in hand in that quarter.
Chairman
161. The message we get is that govern- ment puts out a mass of information and the trade associations put out a mass of information but the stuff is not always read and if it is read it is not always understood.
(Mr Checketts.) Amen.
(Chairman.) The trade associations and their organisations have a great part to play. Thank you very much for coming and giving us such interesting evidence so far and we look forward to seeing you in three weeks time.
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