Further supplementary written evidence
submitted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
CHINA TASK FORCE: BACKGROUND
CHINA TASK
FORCE MEMBERS
Rt Hon John Prescott MP—Deputy Prime Minister
(Chair)
Lord Powell—President, China Britain Business
Council (CBBC)
Sir Robin Saxby—Executive Chairman ARM
Mervyn Davies—CEO Standard Chartered Bank
Sir John Rose—CEO Rolls Royce Plc
Sir Stephen Brown—Group Chief Executive, British
Trade International
Ian Pearson MP—FCO/UKTI Minister of State for
Trade
Sebastian Wood—Director, Asia Pacific, Foreign
& Commonwealth Office
Sir Richard Sykes—Vice Chairman, Imperial College
Professor David Norse—Pro-Provost, University
College, London. Full Title: Pro-Provost for UCL's Co-operation
with PR China & Professor of Environmental Management, University
College London
Professor Sir Colin Campbell—Vice Chancellor,
University of Nottingham
Dr Gary Dirks—Executive President and CEO BP
China Ltd, Chairman British Chamber of Commerce China
Professor Elizabeth (Lisa) Croll—Professor
of Chinese Anthropology of the University of London, and Vice-Principal
of SOAS (the School of Oriental & African Studies)
Lord Chan—Chair of the Chinese in Britain Forum
Neil MacGregor—Director of the British Museum
1. The China Task Force was set up in November
2003, following visits to China by both the PM and the DPM in
the second half of the year.
2. Originally asked to look at 4 areas:
Science and Technology; Trade and Investment; Education; and Sustainable
Development/Environment.
3. Series of recommendations presented by
the DPM to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao when the latter visited
London in May 2004.
4. Further meeting of the task force in
November 2004 to review progress, before DPM visited China at
the end of Nov 2004 and presented a progress report.
5. Further meetings of the task force in
July 2005 and October 2005.
6. Remit of the task force now expanded
to include Culture, Health and Development issues, and new members
recruited to add expertise in these areas.
7. KEY ACHIEVEMENTS
8. The task force recommended that there
should be annual UK-China summits at Prime Ministerial level.
More than anything thing else, implementing this recommendation
has given focus and impetus to our developing relationship with
the Chinese.
9. On Science and Technology: the hugely
successful British Year of Science in China has run all this
year—incorporated a large number of events, big and small,
across a range of scientific areas.
10. On Trade and Investment: bilateral
programmes are making excellent progress in 5 key trade areas—Information
and Communications Technology (ICT); Water; Financial Services;
Energy; and Health.
11. On Education: first annual education
summit held in February this year; new scholarship programme,
Partnerships for Excellence, has been launched; Global Links scheme
for schools has been expanded.
12. On Sustainable Development/Environment:
Sustainable Development Dialogue being signed during this visit,
which will provide a framework for further work with China on
sustainable development, climate change, flood defence, and a
range of other environmental issues.
ASIA TASK FORCE: BACKGROUND
ASIA TASK
FORCE MEMBERS
Co-Chairs
1. Rt Hon Alan Johnson, Secretary of State
for Trade and Industry
2. Bryan Sanderson, Chair, Standard Chartered
Bank
Members
3. Brian Barwick, Chief Executive, Football
Association
4. Karan Bilimoria, Chief Executive, Cobra
Beer & Chairman, Indo-British Partnership Network
5. Howard Davies, Director, London School
of Economics and Political Science
6. Prof Lord Desai, formerly at LSE
7. Baroness Dunn, Chief Executive, John
Swire & Sons Ltd, Deputy Chair and Senior Non-Executive Director,
HSBC
8. Clara Furse, Chief Executive, London
Stock Exchange
9. Bill Gammell, Chief Executive, Cairn
Energy plc
10. Sir Christopher Gent, Non-Executive
Chair, GlaxoSmithKline plc
11. Dr Byron Grote, Chief Financial Officer,
BP plc
12. Sir Digby Jones, Director General, CBI
13. Sir Peter Mason, Chief Executive, AMEC
14. Sir Tom McKillop, Chief Executive Officer,
AstraZeneca plc
15. Dr Gerry Murphy, Chief Executive, Kingfisher
plc
16. Sir John Parker, Chief Executive, Chair,
P&O
17. Lord Powell, China-Britain Business
Council
18. John Ridding, Chair, Pearson Asia
19. Tim Whiston, Chief Executive Officer,
iSOFT Group plc
20. Willie Walsh, Chief Executive, British
Airways plc
21. Sir Robert Wilson, BG Group plc
ATF Secretariat
31 October 2005
Minutes of the first meeting of the Asia
Task Force held at 12:00 on Thursday 27 October 2005 at One Great
George Street, London
Members present
Rt Hon Alan Johnson (Co-Chair)
Bryan Sanderson (Co-Chair)
Karan Bilimoria
Prof the Lord Desai
The Baroness Dunn
Clara Furse
Bill Gammell
Dr Byron Grote
Sir Peter Mason
Dr Gerry Murphy
Sir John Parker
The Lord Powell
Willie Walsh
Tim Whiston
ATF Secretariat, UKTI
Ian Fletcher
James Withers (Secretary)
| Meeting opened by
Rt Hon Gordon Brown
Also present
Asif Ahmad
Caoimhe Buckley
Nikunj Khutti
Gregor Lusty
Frances Moffett-Kouadio
Kitty Parkes
Louise Proudlove
Apologies
Brian Barwick
Howard Davies
Sir Christopher Gent
Sir Digby Jones
Sir Tom McKillop
John Ridding
Sir Robert Wilson
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Summary of action points
1. The Secretariat to arrange a date in March 2006 for
the second meeting of the ATF.
2. The Secretariat to report back to the ATF on current
Government activity on intellectual property rights.
3. The Secretariat to consider what can be learnt from
the work of other countries on changing business attitudes to
Asia.
4. The Secretariat to report back to the ATF on current
Government policy considerations on student visas and international
education initiatives.
5. The Secretariat to investigate a futures project on
UK-Asia trade in 2020; to consider seminars and workshops involving
members and their nominees; and to explore academic input on geo-political
and human development.
6. The Secretariat to take forward work looking at mid-corporate
companies' attitudes to and experience of trade with Asia.
7. The Secretariat to produce a summary of existing barriers
and Government initiatives to overcome them from work already
available.
8. The Secretariat to consider how ministerial visits
could help deliver ATF objectives.
9. Members to inform the Secretariat of suggestions for
further members of the ATF and to nominate a working-level contact
for the ATF if they wish to do so.
DETAIL
Item 1: Welcome and launch of ATF
The meeting opened with short speeches from the Chancellor
and the two co-chairs. Gordon Brown thanked the members for their
involvement in what he regarded as an important initiative. He
indicated that he would welcome ideas and policy proposals for
the Government to consider.
Bryan Sanderson highlighted how different the Asian and Western
markets are and said there would be challenges that the UK would
need to overcome to grasp the opportunities in Asia. Alan Johnson
described his objectives for the meeting: to look at where the
ATF should focus its work and to develop an action plan for the
ATF Secretariat to take forward.
Item 2: General issues
The group accepted the Terms of Reference as a starting point
for the ATF's work and its status as an informal stakeholder group
to advise the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
Alan Johnson thanked his co-chair, Bryan Sanderson, for his
involvement and for providing a dedicated resource to work with
the ATF Secretariat at UKTI. The group agreed that it would meet
twice yearly.
ACTION: The Secretariat to arrange a date in March 2006
for the second meeting of the ATF.
Item 3: Themes for the ATF to consider
Bryan Sanderson asked the group if they felt that the agenda
captured the themes they wanted to focus upon. The following headings
highlight the issues explored during the discussion.
General
The group agreed that it was right to consider the barriers
to trade with Asia, but also that the opportunities could be a
good starting point. Sectors where there were no barriers and
where it was easy to do business could be promoted, such as light
industry and consumer products. Although there has been a shift
in the UK to services industry, light manufacturing remains important
to SMEs.
Although there are many barriers to trade that originate
in Asian countries, UK-based barriers, such as visa restrictions
and lack of understanding of Asian business culture, should not
be ignored.
The ATF must not duplicate work already carried out elsewhere.
It should be informed about other Government and business groups
looking at barriers to trade with Asia and compliment and learn
from their work.
Intellectual Property Rights
Intellectual property rights (IPR) and their lack of enforcement
is a huge problem. This is an issue on which the Government should
take the lead on behalf of business. Areas that need consideration
include lobbying for effective enforcement, help with capacity
building and mechanisms to address specific infringements.
ACTION: The Secretariat to report back to the ATF on current
Government activity on IPR.
Education
Many Asian countries are cautious about allowing foreign
education establishments to set up there. This presented a barrier
to the export of education from the UK. Conversely UK-based problems,
such as visa restrictions and high fees were likely to be responsible
for the fall in numbers of students coming from Asia to study
in the UK, despite the benefit of UK cultural links with Asia.
UK universities do not give fellowships like those in the US,
which means some Asian students can not afford to study in the
UK.
ACTION: The Secretariat to report back to the ATF on current
Government policy considerations on student visas and international
education initiatives.
Involvement of the European Commission
The European Commission (EC) looks at barriers to trade.
The ATF should involve EC experts to help inform their work. The
ATF could present its findings to the EC to highlight the issues
that need tackling. The European Chamber has produced a series
of papers looking at barriers to trade with China and Indonesia.
There were likely to be similar barriers in Malaysia and other
Asian countries.
Business culture
The lack of knowledge of the culture of and approach to doing
business in Asia was an area that needed particular improvement
in the UK. Interpersonal relationships and how business people
approach their opposite numbers in Asia were key. There was a
lot of expertise within Asian communities in the UK, in UK universities'
Asian studies departments and in British diplomatic posts abroad
that could be used to help improve this. Asian studies as a discipline
has declined in the UK: business sponsorship of these courses
at universities might be a way of reversing this trend.
Business attitudes to trade with Asia
The ATF could look at the attitude of UK industry to international
trade and how UK businesses engage with Asian markets. The Germans
were currently much better placed due to their better cultural
understanding of Asia.
The UK must demonstrate why Asia should chose the UK to trade
with, rather than France, Germany or the US, for example. We should
also look at how we can learn lessons from what these other countries
are doing, for example the US in India.
ACTION: The Secretariat to consider what can be learnt
from the work of other countries on changing business attitudes
to Asia.
Focus of the ATF
The group identified that determining the coverage of the
ATF was a challenge. Asia was not a single place, and different
regions had varied needs and presented different problems. Single
themes that covered the whole of Asia were difficult to find and
to work with. Country-focussed initiatives would be very important.
The group suggested that the ATF might consider China and India,
and two other countries, such as Thailand and Indonesia, when
carrying out specific pieces of work. Korea was also worthy of
study.
The ATF should not confine itself to the items on the agenda.
It was the view of the group that UK manufacturing industry should
not be ignored when looking at UK trade with Asia.
SMEs are well-placed to grasp the opportunities presented
by Asia. Anything that Government could offer to help them would
be valuable.
It was important to encourage the interest of UK companies
in Asia. Workshops or seminars could help to spread enthusiasm
about Asia around the UK. Using SMEs with experience of the markets
could be useful and has been successful in recent seminars related
to India.
It was also suggested that the ATF concentrate initially
on Asian markets beyond China and India, as much work was already
being done there. The counter argument was put that not enough
work was being done to encourage UK trade with India or China.
It was agreed that specific work could be done to target ATF countries
other than China and India.
Item 4: The work of the ATF
The group recommended that the ATF not only consider the
barriers and obstacles to UK trade, but also look at how it could
equip UK companies to deal with the opportunities presented by
Asia. The following areas of work were recommended by the group.
UK-Asia Trade 2020
Work to look forward to 2020 at the future demand of the
Asian economies and the UK's ability to supply it would be valuable.
This could help to identify the future threats and opportunities
for UK companies.
ACTION: The Secretariat to investigate a futures project
on UK-Asia trade in 2020; to consider seminars and workshops involving
members and their nominees; and to explore academic input on geo-political
and human development.
Involving mid-corporate companies
A survey of the medium- to long-term practical difficulties
that successful companies doing business in Asia have faced would
be useful. This could also consider the opportunities. The lessons
learned could then be communicated to companies to encourage trade
with Asia. A suggested starting point was to understand the competitive
environment in Asia and its future.
ACTION: The Secretariat to take forward work looking at
mid-corporate companies' attitudes to and experience of trade
with Asia.
The group suggested that large and small companies have different
requirements for help to enter Asian markets. It was important
for UKTI to look at its capacity for dealing with mid-corporate
companies within the UK and in selected hubs in Asia, possibly
using secondees from UK companies as a way of developing this
capacity.
Current barriers and work to lower them
Work was being done in many places throughout the UK Government
and in Europe to identify trade barriers with Asia. A useful first
step would be to identify and weigh the importance of these barriers
and highlight the mechanisms already in place to address them.
ACTION: The Secretariat to produce a summary of existing
barriers and Government and other initiatives in place to overcome
them.
High level visits to markets
The group wished to consider how best to use ministerial
and other high-level visits to markets to promote business objectives.
Participants noted that some European and US businesses had a
sustained level of support from senior political leaders in Asia.
Positive references were made to the impact of the visit in September
by the delegation led by the Prime Minister to China and India.
ACTION: The Secretariat to consider how ministerial visits
could help deliver ATF objectives.
Item 5: Summing up and action points
Alan Johnson asked the members to consider who else might
be invited to be a member of the ATF. He thanked the members who
had nominated a working-level contact for the ATF and asked other
members to inform the Secretariat if they wished to do so.
ACTION: Members to inform the Secretariat of suggestions
for further members of the ATF and to nominate a working-level
contact for the ATF if they wish to do so.
The group agreed that the minutes of their meetings should
be published on the UKTI website and that publicity should be
explored to highlight its work.
Bryan Sanderson and Alan Johnson thanked the members for
their contributions and closed the meeting.
ATF Secretariat
7 November 2005
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