HC Deb 28 July 1975 vol 896 cc1275-6
9. Mr. Hooley

asked the Secretary of State for Trade how many trade missions will visit the countries of North Africa during 1975.

Mr. Deakins

The British Overseas Trade Board has approved three trade missions to North African countries for support in 1975.

Mr. Hooley

Does not my hon. Friend agree that it is absurd to send 16 trade missions to South Africa this year and only 15 to the whole of the rest of Africa? Is it not time on both economic and political grounds, that we reorientated our trade effort to Africa at large?

Mr. Deakins

I assure my hon. Friend that the determining factor in all trade missions is the commercial judgment of companies. Although our trade with North Africa is relatively small, it is a fast-growing trade. In the first five months of this year our exports to North African countries were up by 72 per cent. over the same period of last year.

Mr. Robert Taylor

As I have the privilege of leading one of the forthcoming missions to West Africa, may I support the Minister and tell the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley) that his knowledge of selling in any part of Africa is absolutely abysmal?

Mr. Kinnock

Does my hon. Friend agree that another determining factor, as he put it, in making decisions about trade allocations is the Labour Party manifesto, with which he is at least as familiar as I? What is the application of that same manifesto to the decision announced by the British Steel Corporation about the chrome smelter in South Africa, especially as the information is that the chrome ore originates in Rhodesia so that, far from being locked up in South Africa, as the Department of Industry has put it, the dividends resulting from investment in this process could in fact be repatriated?

Mr. Deakins

This is primarily a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry and I am sure that he will be answering a number of Questions on this subject in due course. I assure the House that there is no question of any ECGD facilities being involved in that transaction.