TNAG-1154-FCO40-1434-Visits-by-Members-of-Parliament-(MPs)-to-Hong-Kong-1982 — Page 12

173.

You are saying then that the European Community, in the area

we are talking about, is moving forwards rather than backwards and

forwards on an acceptable base?

(Mr Checketts) Acceptable? The processes are pretty slow.

I cannot control them or influence them but they are certainly

process for involving European businessmon in these activities in

South-east Asia, though they are pretty slow and perhaps necessarily;

I do not know.

Chairman:

Let us turn our attention to problems associated with

investment.

Mr Hill

174. Mr Checketts, in your paper AS2, on page 5, you have a short

paragraph on investment. In what ways can HMG and UK industry and commerce

improve their assistance to the national development plans of ASEAN

countries?

(Mr Young) I have been working on this for some time, for some

years. There is a requirement for British industry to pay greater

attention to the aspirations of some of the development plans for Malaysia

and Indonesia, in particular, within ASEAN. We are apparently very

willing to sell but we seem less prepared than some of our continental

competitors in particular to go into joint ventures. This is what those

countries wish and we must recognise that fact. We must recognise that

in so doing, the investment which we make has to be phased so that

industry interests in the Uk are not penalised overmuch in the short-

term but have regard to the long-term requirements of British industry

and capital to grow overall. It has to be a phased procedure.

Notably, this was the case in textiles and it is a very important point

that we must not be left behind in making foreign investments. Perhaps,

whilst exchange control regulations were in existence, we got slightly

out of the habit of investing. That may be part of it, and there is

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