Trade (Japan) (Hansard, 24 November 1993)

§ 7. Mr. Viggers
To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on the current trade balance with Japan.

§ The Minister for Trade (Mr. Richard Needham)
Despite the difficult economic conditions in Japan, United Kingdom exports rose 19 per cent. in the first 10 months of 1993 compared with the corresponding period in 1992. The United Kingdom has a visible trade deficit with Japan which, for the same period, stands at £4,894 million.

§ Mr. Viggers
Does my hon. Friend agree that raw statistics are rather misleading because of the variation in value between the yen and the pound? The true position is that our exporters have performed strongly in the Japanese market in recent years. Is my hon. Friend in a position to make an announcement now about the successor to the extremely successful Priority Japan programme?

§ Mr. Needham
My hon. Friend is right. If we look at the balance between exports and imports to Japan, we see that it has hardly changed in the past five years and is better than it was in the early 1980s. Our exports to Japan have increased by 20 per cent. this year against a difficult background. We continue to attract enormous investment from Japan. I will announce the successor to the Priority Japan programme in the next few weeks and I am sure that it will command the support and backing of the House and British industry.

§ Mrs. Anne Campbell
Is the Minister aware that the Japanese have now identified the aerospace and pharmaceutical industries as the ones in which special effort and special investment will be made in the next few years? Currently, we do quite well against Japan in those industries. What does the Minister think that those British industries will be like by the year 2000 in comparison with the Japanese industries?

§ Mr. Needham
We have among the most competitive and successful pharmaceutical and aerospace industries in the world. The only way in which that position could alter is if the hon. Lady and her hon. Friends ever sat on the Government Benches and imposed the ridiculous rules that they want to introduce, which would undermine the competitiveness of our country and make our competitive position more difficult than it would otherwise be.

§ Mr. Butcher
My hon. Friend will be aware that the United States is looking increasingly eastwards towards Japan and the Pacific basin as the areas of more dynamic growth and trade than that offered by Europe. As a counter to that trend, is my hon. Friend prepared to encourage negotiations to establish a north Atlantic free trade area, which would dynamise the economies of the western European ports, such as our own and the American eastern seaboard? Does my hon. Friend agree that, if we could achieve that, it would be an important subset at the GATT negotiations?

§ Mr. Needham
I am for dynamising wherever I can go. Western European/Asia-Pacific trade is now greater than north American/European trade and that trend is likely to continue. The most important aspect of that for the British economy is whether Britain is taking maximum advantage of our opportunities in the east. The answer is yes. For example, our own exports to China are up more than 100 per cent. this year and those to Hong Kong have increased by 48 per cent. Throughout the far east, British industry, British commerce and British services, with the help of the British Government, are doing remarkably well and we will continue to concentrate on that part of the world.