Speech
before the Los Angeles World Affairs Council on November 2, 2000:
HRH
The Duke of York
(The
Prince Andrew)
“Britain:
Open for Business”
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Delighted to be
back in Los Angeles. My thanks to
the World Affairs Council and to the British American Business Council for your
kind invitation to join you today.
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Your City and
the State of California have been enjoying a great reputation back in the United
Kingdom. I have just seen the work
on the magnificent new Disney Concert Hall, adding to the cluster of fine new
buildings nearby that will encourage the revitalisation of downtown.
Both California and the UK are centres of creativity and innovation.
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The many of you
here with professional links to Britain will know well what I am talking about
when I refer to the vibrancy of the relationship between us.
A mature relationship across so many disciplines.
But a relationship buzzing with new activity.
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Take our
investment in each other’s economies. The
Consul-General has referred to the bilateral ties in this area.
We are thrilled, though not surprised, that so many of your Southland
firms have chosen to invest and to expand their business in our country.
From manufacturing and business services to so many new companies
spreading their skills in the exciting world of electronic business.
I am equally happy that our firms are placing their investment and
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The context in
which all this occurs is of a bilateral business environment that offers our
leaders and entrepreneurs the confidence of playing on a level playing field.
Confidence that their investment decisions are on strong ground, fit the
strategy and will bring long-term benefit to shareholders.
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But this mutual
confidence is found in other disciplines. I happen to be a serving Officer of the Royal Navy.
I have been privileged to witness the extraordinary, close relationship
between the United States Navy and the Royal Navy.
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Just in the
last few days, the two Navies have been in close co-operation in exercise in the
Pacific, as part of the Royal Navy’s Task Force 2000 circumnavigation of the
globe. Our ships were in San Diego
and before that at Pearl Harbor. Incidentally,
part of our Task Force was a ship of the French Navy, the first such involvement
since 1945.
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In this
context, may I record my sympathy and deepest condolences to the bereaved, the
families affected and the shipmates of the men and women of the USS Cole so
tragically assaulted in Aden last month. One
of our own ships was able to get to Aden soon after, to offer some comfort and
friendship to the Cole. Alas, so
many young crewmen and women had died or were injured.
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Another case of
our Naval co-operation was not long ago when you allowed the Royal Navy to
conduct our first live test of the Tomohawk cruise missile on an uninhabited
island target not far from here.
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This prompted
one British newspaper to quip that we had attacked California.
I suspect that if this had been taken literally our Consul-General would
have been despatched rather quickly to some remote atoll.
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But Ladies and
Gentlemen at the heart of much of our bilateral co-operation is technology.
This is the subject I would like to spend a few minutes on this
afternoon.
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Our admiration
for California has much to do with your exceptional multi-culture.
You will also forgive us for admiring your climate.
But above all our admiration is for your inventiveness, for your
imagination and for your application of enabling technology.
I believe that we make pretty good partners in this. In recent years in Britain we too have been enjoying the
fruits of our creative talent. Talent
in the worlds of art and of science. And
especially where those two worlds overlap.
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Take as an
example the RSA. This stands in
full for the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and
Commerce. That linkage was made on
its foundation in 1754. My father
is its President. The RSA has many
Fellows in this country but would like to attract more on the West Coast.
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We have been
happy to contribute some of our creativity to the great entertainment industry
run out of this City. An
Englishman, Edweard Muybridge, first attempted to capture a trotting horse with
all four feet off the ground in the 1870s.
The horse was called Occident. Its
owner was your former State Governor. Muybridge came to be known as the father of the moving
picture. He went on to perfect his
zoopraxiscope, effectively the first projector. Mr Edison took things on from there.
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Our creativity
in film is by no means a chapter of history.
This year, your audiences have given two thumbs up to our most ambitious
animation project, about chickens trying to escape the pie processor.
And one of your blockbusters this year had some very significant input
from our talented UK visual effects sector.
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The
relationship between the Hollywood and British film industries is indeed an
exciting partnership for the benefit of both, in which we share creative talent,
in technology, in artistry and indeed across all the disciplines of the
industry. The prospects of even
more development are encouraging. Our
own British Film Office set up in Los Angeles is dedicated to furthering this.
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Symbolic of
this partnership is the acceptance by Mr Steven Spielberg of the Britannia Award
from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts here on Saturday.
We are delighted by this tribute.
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But let me
explore more widely into British science and innovation.
And let me offer some observations on the internet revolution.
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The latest
statistics show that California, if an independent country, would now be sixth
among the world’s economies. Britain
is fourth on the same table. We
were recently reminded that the University of California alone has had 43 Nobel
Prize winners. But in Britain we
are also proud of our record of scientific research and inventiveness.
With 1% of the world’s population, we fund 6% of scientific research
and present 8% of scientific papers. The
University of Cambridge leads the world with some 73 Nobel laureates.
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Research
nevertheless brings its greatest benefit in application.
When last measured, our earnings from high technology exports were $750 a
head, the highest among the G7. We
know that to project ourselves as global players we must have a knowledge-driven
economy. Those of you with investment in the United Kingdom will know
what this means.
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Over the last
decade, we have contributed a pretty good share to global trade in high
technology in aerospace, computer and telecommunications and pharmaceuticals.
We are a world leader in digital broadcasting, with services by
satellite, cable and terrestrial means. Our
biotechnology sector is the largest in Europe, with steady progress through
clinical trials. We are strong on
opto-electronics. Last year, I was
pleased to see for myself something of the contribution of our Particle Physics
and Astronomy Research Council's work at Mauna Kea on Hawaii.
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You may also
know that we remain keen enthusiasts in specialist niches like motor sports and
computer games.
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Links with the
United States in science and technology are legion.
We have been working closely on the human genome.
As intellectual sparring partners, we have pushed science forward and
continue to be at the forefront. At
the fundamental level, we have learnt from your great universities the
importance of exploiting our assets of knowledge.
Britain is indeed now up to your level in the proportion of research
funded by industry. And we have
boosted the public sector research base.
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Further up the
food chain, we are as convinced as you that education is critical.
We are doing all we can to encourage children to go for science and
engineering. I look forward to my
visit to one your High Schools nearby this afternoon.
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So to the
internet. Although an Englishman,
Tim Berners-Lee, designed the world-wide web, you have led the internet
revolution. It is natural for you
to believe that we are lagging behind. We
are in fact not that far away. 90%
of British workers are in businesses connected to the internet.
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And we have
some advantages. After our early
deregulation of our telecommunications industry, we now enjoy the most advanced
telecommunications infrastructure in Europe.
We have the largest optic fibre network of two million miles.
Our telephone network is digital and with advanced bandwidth.
Cable delivers voice, video and data to half our households.
Our wired population is now around 40%.
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In sum, we
think we may be just months behind you. And enjoying our single standard for mobile telephony we now
have 50% of our population with mobiles (and quite a debate, as here, about
their appropriate public use). And
many in Britain feel that the important next stage of the revolution is to be
found in the convergence of mobile access and voice recognition.
It is a moot point where the PC goes.
The transition to global internet use through wireless means may well be
fast in Europe.
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We have now
issued our licenses in Britain for the third generation mobile system with
wireless access protocol. That
bidders were prepared to offer $30 billion for licenses tells us that there is
impressive potential for this mobile telephony.
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Los Angeles
needs no reminding about the importance also of content.
I expect to see many new partnerships between Southern California and the
United Kingdom in this area, sharing our experience and innovation.
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Convinced that
our success in the new knowledge economy will depend on widespread acceptance of
the revolution, the United Kingdom is investing across the waterfront.
Digital interactive television is now well established in Britain.
86% of our schools are connected to the web. Our poorest families are being loaned computers.
The Government has its own ambition to deliver its services
electronically by 2005. Government
purchasing will happen earlier.
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In the broader
economic context, we remain hopeful that the application of electronic
technology will continue to stimulate productivity gains in all industries.
The debate about the so-called new and old economies may indeed be a
false one. As consumers and as
businesses, we are all affected and the growth prospects are exciting for us,
and above all for the next generation.
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Ladies and
Gentlemen, I thank you for joining this World Affairs Council today.
I look forward to my few days in the Southland and to the chance to see
more of all the things going on connecting you with the United Kingdom.
The relationship between California and the UK is in a great state and I
thank you for all you are doing to sustain it.