US and Japan combined.
There is still more work to be done in the operation of the Single Market - for example in areas like telecommunications and energy. But the intense legislative phase is over and attention must move to effective implementation and enforcement. The DTI have established a special unit to deal with cases raised by companies where they encounter barriers to trade in other member states which should have been abolished. We will work hard to ensure a fair playing field for British business in Europe.
I know that the Staffordshire Development Association has a strong interest in the Single Market and that your European Business Centre has been very active in "spreading the word" and offering advice to anyone interested in doing business in Europe. Since well over half of Britain's exports go to Europe, we should not take it for granted. But neither should we ignore areas of the world which are likely to become just as important to us in the near future.
Asia-Pacific:
Why it matters
You in Staffordshire were way ahead of the pack in realising how much we could profit from links with Asia. The introduction of Chinese porcelain into this country from the mid 16th century onwards inspired local craftsmen and businessmen, helping to make Staffordshire the centre of the British ceramics industry.
My own associations with the Asia-Pacific region are a little more recent, but have had no less profound an impact on my thinking. I make no apologies for being biased in my attempts to persuade the people who matter in Government and Industry to look at the Asia-Pacific more closely and to take the region more seriously.
Twenty years ago I worked in Singapore for Ralli and then Bowaters. I also did some work in Indonesia. I was then a member of the South East Asia Trade Advisory Group before becoming embroiled in Westminster.
[It is interesting to be able to look at the problems of UK plc and British business from my perspective, that is from within Government but with experience in the commercial field and in the region.] For too long we have been comfortable in the well-known markets of the USA, Western Europe and the Commonwealth. The startling developments in the Asia-Pacific seem to have crept up
on us.
If you had visited Hong Kong in 1980 and had looked across the border to China, you would have seen only paddy fields and a few simple buildings. If you stand there today, little more than a decade later, you will see spread out before you the boom town of Shenzhen, part of one of China's Special Economic Zones. The
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