In the United Kingdom, for example, the sheer overwhelming dominance of London makes it extremely for provincial cities to develop more than a very restricted financial function. London, in that sense, is akin to the notorious upas tree, a fabulous Javanese tree so poisonous that it destroys all life for many miles around itself.

Innovation - the heart of technological change - is fundamentally a learning process.

A striking feature of financial service activities during the past few decades is that the financial transactions essential to the operation of the 'real' economy has become increasingly dwarfed by speculative activity.

It remains to be seen, for example whether China can continue to develop as a market economy while still retaining an authoritarian communist political system.

One of the most striking developments has been the rise, fall and rise again of the semiconductor industry of the United States, which is, once again, the dominant player in the most advanced semiconductor product-markets.

More broadly, strategic alliances are more difficult to manage and coordinate than single ventures; the potential for misunderstanding and disagreement, particularly between partners from different cultures, is great. Certainly many such alliances are short lived.

It is indeed paradoxical that an industry which epitomizes all that is new and up-to-date at the same time harbours some of the oldest and least desirable attributes of work in manufacturing industry.