interior Planning It is always easy to criticize the government, but such criticism is sterile. Much of the blame for the inadequate understanding by British manufacturers of the problems and possibilities of export must be laid at the door of trade associations and the like who though there are shining exceptions are so caught up in the web of petty squabbles and intrigues among their members that the real export issues become fogged-if indeed they are appreciated at all. In a period of worldwide industrialization it may be that Britain should reexamine her entire approach to export, recognizing that she has new values to offer values in the form of experience and knowhow, of 'invisibles' such as insurance and banking, and of forms of investment which will encourage ultimate trade in the types of capital and semicapital equipment for the quality of which she is justly respected and for which she has already built up an impressive export total. A short case history of the growth of the export trade of a remarkable firm called Dexion specializing in a slotted angle bracket concludes this section. In the end it is, as has been stressed, a question of will. A management that contains within it a real determination to trade abroad will succeed however manifold the difficulties. Dexion Limited are manufacturers of the Dexion Slotted Angle System now known all over the world. The basis of the system is Dexion Slotted Angle a steel angle perforated on the basis of a patented design and which, when used with nuts and bolts, can be used to build almost any structure a seventyfoot radio tower, a humble workbench, the framework of a house, or a storage rack. It has a thousand uses. Such a product, with its practically limitless range, clearly offered a challenge from the point of view of the export market. No market was too small-every market could use it. The first Dexion was produced in 1948, and in order to get an allocation of steel, then rationed by the Government, the Company had to accept a hundredpercent export target. This fact probably had a lot to do with the Company's attitude to exports overseas countries, however small, had to be tackled aggressively, and a sales organization specifically developed for this purpose. Export sales were not just a spillover from the home market, but were negotiated and developed for their own sake. The growth was rapid. In the first five years exports rose at an annual average rate of 140 per cent. Today in spite of the fact that the total overseas market is smaller than ever, owing to overseas manufacture of the product and in some cases import restrictions, exports still account for nearly fifty per cent of the Company's turnover. The original method of selling was through exclusive distributors in various territories, some of which were appointed by correspondence from London. Gradually Export Sales Executives started overseas tours, visiting distributors and training their sales staff. to buy a house