§ Mr. Matthew TaylorTo ask the President of the Board of Trade, pursuant to his answer of 14 February,Official Report, columns 572–73, what was the number of applications and responses to the (a) export services, (b) business in Europe, (c) small firms merit award for research and technology scheme, (d) inward investment and (e) Queen's awards campaigns during this financial year.
§ Mr. EggarThe information is as follows
Export services/Business in EuropeResponses and calls to the campaign hotlines are running at a rate equivalent to about 30,000 for the full year.SMARTThe 1994 competition has not yet closed, and responses and applications are still coming in. There were over 6,200 responses to the 1993 campaign and nearly 1,500 applications.Inward InvestmentThe latest available figures show that overseas publicity by the Invest in Britain Bureau was associated with 3,718 enquiries handled by the bureau in London and 182 new investment projects out of 396 dealt with during the year. Investment projects take several months, and often years, to come to fruition and so a direct link between general promotion and one year's projects cannot be made.Queen's AwardsDetails of application numbers will be released when the 1994 award winners are announced in April. For the 1993 awards there were over 11,000 inquiries and 1,822 applications.
§ Mr. Matthew TaylorTo ask the President of the Board of Trade, pursuant to his answer of 14 February,Official Report, columns 572–73, what was the budgeted and the actual cost of each of the public information campaigns listed.
§ Mr. EggarExpenditure in the current financial year is expected to be as follows:892W
£ Export services/business in Europe advertising (joint campaign) 200,000 SMART publicity campaign 250,000 Firework safety publicity campaign 166,500 Inward investment advertising 942,000 Queen's awards publicity campaign 280,000 Expenditure will be broadly in line with budgets.