To reward the beginnings of a new sense of community in its citizens, the government launched, in December 1969, the first Festival of Hong Kong, with a crowded week of programmes including musical and sporting events, exhibitions, youth rallies and special displays.

Succeeding Roy Wraight as ISD's new Art Director, Arthur Hacker arrived just in time to design the Festival logo. He found he had inherited an office manned by the charming veteran designer David Chin and a solitary assistant.

Like some prophetic precursor of the flag designed many years later for the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, the Festival logo's spiralling orange and white radials suggested a 'bright, bouncing ball incorporating the Hong Kong orchid in the centre, representing 'the progressive and resilient spirit of the community'.

Fittingly, the festival took place on the eve of Hong Kong's most progressive and resilient decade, when both the place and its populace finally came of age. With the arrival of the '70s, the people of Hong Kong began to reap the benefits of their industry. Improved labour legislation, combined with increased competition for a workforce that had earned the right to choose from a range of available options, ushered in new affluence and greater self-assurance.

This was also the age of the emergent middle class, at first narrowly parting and then laying massive and unmistakable claim to the gap between rich and poor. These became the exemplars of Hong Kong society, the extensive middle ground of new money from which arose a younger breed of entrepreneurs, if anything more adventurous and confident than their predecessors.

Fittingly, the '70s was also an era of rapid localisation within the civil service, as reflected in the recruitment policies of ISD. Since 1972, there have been only two expatriates, as opposed to seven locals, appointed to occupy the post of DIS, and none since the untimely death of John Slimming in 1979.

Hong Kong started taking off in new directions, its products acquiring greater flair and style, setting trends rather than following them. Fortunes were made and unmade by riding this formidable engine of enterprise. Risk-taking sometimes went disastrously wrong, but the impetus was ever upward and onward, and those who fell momentarily by the wayside simply had to run harder to catch up.

Government's efforts to assist industry in its quest for wider trade opportunities had their origins in the previous decade, when the Trade Development Council and the Hong Kong Productivity Council were founded in quick succession, in 1966 and 1967 respectively. But Bob Sun can remember even earlier forays into prospective new markets overseas. His trip to London for the Ideal Home Exhibition was not his first exposure to the milieu of the international trade fair.

The previous year, Jock Murray had assigned him to assist the Commerce and Industry Department in the month-long First International Trade Fair in Nigeria. "He gave me specific instructions to learn the management of such a display, in preparation for the forthcoming one in England," Sun recalls. Bill Fish was another ISD staffer loaned for the purpose of promoting Hong Kong's presence at such venues, and was regularly detached to assist the TDC in its initial ventures on to the world stage.

It was left to Murray's successor, Nigel Watt, to take on the task of preparing what was to be Hong Kong's first participation in the series of category one world Expos staged, every four years, with elaborate expense and ceremony in major cities around the globe, many of which compete vigorously for the honour of hosting these events.

In 1970 the honour fell to Osaka, in Japan, and Watt recruited Grahame Blundell as co-ordinator of the Hong Kong pavilion. Arriving two years early, to keep within the long lead time required for so elaborate a venture, Blundell commissioned the late Allen Fitch, architect of Hong Kong's City Hall, to design the structure. Fitch came up with a low profile building spectacularly crowned by a flotilla of full-sized masts and junk sails, designed to be raised and lowered each day and to rotate with the prevailing winds. The fabric for the sails was a fine mesh to let the air through and protect them from sudden gusts.

Blundell recalls: "Over nine million visitors from all over the world trooped through the pavilion. Prince Charles was perhaps the most important visitor. He was followed by three Kings, two Crown Princes and various Presidents and lots of ambassadors. The VIP room in the pavilion was rather small and there was always a shortage of chairs. Frequently, distinguished guests sat on the floor having enjoyed a superb Chinese meal in the pavilion restaurant. They sat on the floor in the VIP lounge enjoying good conversation, champagne and brandy. The parties were great and frequently quite boisterous!"

It would be 16 years before Hong Kong next participated in a major international exposition (Expo '86 in Vancouver), but the pavilion at Expo '70 marked a significant escalation of Hong Kong's efforts to earn wider recognition for its spectacular post-war achievements, and set the tone for its engagement in a succession of other events in the international arena.

Initially - and inevitably in view of its status as a British colony - the bulk of this endeavour went into arranging venues and showcases in Britain, where attendance at trade fairs, arts festivals and events such as the International Boat Show became almost an annual exercise. But increasingly, as Hong Kong gained respect and renown as a self-supporting entity making its own way in the world, these efforts were directed wider afield, in Europe, the Americas and Asia.