HC Deb 29 November 1960 vol 631 cc192-3
30. Mr. Gresham Cooke

asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will propose a meeting of export executives of companies concerned to emphasise to them the potentialities of trade with the Far East and the need for increasing the British share of that market.

Mr. Erroll

My right hon. Friend does not believe that a general meeting of this kind would be effective. We are, of course, in touch with the appropriate trade bodies about ways and means of increasing our trade in the Far East.

Mr. Gresham Cooke

Would my right hon. Friend agree that Japan is by way of becoming a first-rate industrial nation with an enormous potential market in which Germany and the United States have a much larger share than we have, and that there are other markets in the Far East, such as Hong Kong and China, which also need developing? Is it not time for a bit of an urge to be given to British industry to go forward in that part of the world as it has done in other parts?

Mr. Erroll

I fully agree with my hon. Friend when he says that we should do all we can to urge industry to move forward particularly in that part of the world but, by the very nature of the supplementary question, I think he would agree with me that it is too diffuse an area to be covered effectively by a single meeting of the type which he describes.

Mr. Rankin

Would not the right hon. Gentleman help this trade if he were to remove some or all of the restrictions that are placed on the trade at the present moment, particularly with China?

Mr. Erroll

We have, of course, removed most of the strategic embargo restrictions in the case of China.