§ Mr. Roseasked the Secretary of State for Trade whether he will impose selective import controls on micro-electronic equipment and cars from Japan and south-east Asia.
§ Mr. MeacherFollowing inter-industry discussions about cars in July the Japanese forecast no conspicuous change in their share of the United Kingdom market; we are watching developments closely.
We will consider any proposal which is put to us about micro-electronics, but the interests of the user industries would have to be taken into account. The £10 million micro-electronics support scheme is already in operation to help strengthen our micro-electronic capability. This sum of money was planned to be used over a period of seven years, of which there are three years remaining. The Industry Strategy Sector Working Group on Components is discussing other measures to improve our productive capacity.