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The big projects in China attract the headlines, and I am delighted that British
firms have had some important successes such as GEC in the power
generation sector. They are highly competitive in other sectors as well, and
Richard Needham has been in China again recently pursuing these
opportunities. But I hope your conference will also look at the potential
consumer market in China, as all this economic activity puts money into
people's pockets. Any manufacturer of a good consumer product, finding sales
a bit slow in this part of the globe, ought to be thinking about China.
And thinking about China means thinking about Hong Kong. That is where the
expertise in the China market is to be found: in trading, in joint ventures, in
financial services. I am glad to see that British companies are now giving a
higher priority to the region. The trade figures show the trend: in the first 8
months of this year British exports to Hong Kong rose 31 per cent. To China,
they rose an astonishing 90 per cent, although from a lower base.
Despite encouraging figures like these, I am not convinced that people in
Britain, or more widely in the European Community, have yet fully grasped the
significance for us of Asia and the Pacific.
In the generation ahead, we must give Asia a much higher priority. We must
pay attention to what is happening in Asia, politically and economically. If we
are to restore the share of world markets which the European Community has
lost over the past decade, we must look to our ability to compete in Asia and
with Asia. As I keep reminding my fellow leaders in the European
Community, it is no good burdening our industry with excessive social costs or
fettering it with restrictions on the labour market if the end result is to put
ourselves out of business.
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