Can luxury
goods exports boost the UK's economy?
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The razzamatazz of the
Beijing motor show matters to Britain and the state of the British
economy. We may not own many car brands
these days but we do know how to make cars especially top of the ranges ones.
Rolls Royce, Bentley, Land Rover and especially the Land Rover Evoke launched
with a special edition designed by Victoria Beckam earlier this year in an attempt
to capture market share in the rapidly expanding Chinese economy.
Hey, I have never
designed a car before but I wanted to create I want to drive and a car that
David wants to drive.
As a result Land
Rovers Hailwood plant has, for the first time ever gone onto 3 shifts per day
and running 24 hours per day and this means jobs for an extra 1,000 workers.
Its absolutely brilliant,
I got employed 12 weeks ago and although I have only done 12 weeks it has given
me the chance of a job for the future.
Its about the most
positive we have been for a long time, it was bad a few years ago but with this
new car now, its great, brilliant!
But its not just
established brands that we are good at making, and selling abroad.
You have got modern technology,
basically a steam jacket and we can very accurately control the temperature of
the water bath and turn it to steam, boil up the charge in liquid and make the
good gin.
Sixsmith is a new
distilled, rather improbably in a former garage in a side street in
Hammersmith, west London, with one small still it is a boutique product, but
founder Fairfax Hall is planning to sell Sixsmith in China not for todays sales
possibilities but with an eye for the future.
Its staggering the percentage
of people who drink high end spirits in china, its not particularity exciting
as a percentage, we are talking about 1 maybe 2% and the next five years it
might go up to about 4 or 5%, but when you look at what that means you will
bringing in more than 10 million new drinkers into the category every year
which is absolutely phenomenal.
That us the real
potential for developing markets for our luxury goods we may not be able to
sell them now but as new wealth emerges people will want to spend money on
classy British Brands certainly that has worked for us in the past in some industries.
Saville Row is still rightly
jealous of its prestige, not only is its cloth the finest in the world, its tailors
craftsmen without equal but the very name of the street itself must be
upheld. Clothes from Saville Row go all
over the world and they are welcome ambassadors from Britian.
And now more than ever
Britain’s fashion industry is dependent upon rich foreigners falling in love
with our style. Harry Tillman is
chairman of the British fashion Council and I met him on Saville Row itself.
We believe that sartorial
elegance emanates from Saville Row, whatever anyone wants to replicate around
the world can only be whatever started here in Saville Row.
And why is that?
Tailoring, it’s the home
of it, goes beyond my days, the skills the craftsmanship.
But there is a fly in
the ointment, how to get the new rich, especially from China to come here and
spend money?
Great memories, Great
Mystery, Great Countryside, you are invited.
Visit Britain is
marketing like mad but the truth is China can visit the whole of Europe on one
visa but they need another one to come here.
Patricia Yates is head
of strategy at visit Britian.
They are the highest
spending visitors that we have, yet we don’t get as many as we would like. We get about 150,000 per year and that does
not compare to the numbers that go to France or Germany. One of the barriers is that, obviously Chinese
visitors need a visa to come to Britain and this is a separate visa that they
need for the whole of Europe so we need to work that bit harder to get over to
the Chinese visitors that it is worth it
to spend time, additional energy to get a visa to visit Britain.
But the easing of visa
rules for Chinese tourists is not an open and shut case for the government torn
between those that believe it would damage security and those that believe there
is a strong economic argument to encourage tourists from china. However, British business knows that there
are plenty of other countries in the world to sell luxury products to the nouveau
riche and of we want them to buy British we have to lay out the welcome mat.
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