China. A puzzle wrapped in an enigma surrounded by mystery ? ( As someone said once of something else.) Actually one of the changing realities is that more and more Chinese are travelling here so the opportunity to get some sort of direct insight what China really is thinking is actually increasing. As with almost all Chinese statistics the numbers in this area - and the rate of change - are pretty staggering

Trade figures released this morning showed that the UK's trade in goods deficit was unchanged between February and March.

To return to my refrain, pretty much monthly, since the financial collapse started: the issue is not currency (neither the Euro nor the Drachma); the issue is not deficits. The issue is banking - and bankers.

When the Greeks leave the Euro, clearly the Greek economy will, short term, absolutely tank. Import costs will rocket and so will the prices of basic commodities to the poor ordinary Greeks. Internally held Euros stuffed in biscuit tins and mattresses may help to cushion the immediate blow, and the drachma will float freely massively up and down making everyday life very difficult.

There will be real hardship for ordinary people and businesses who did nothing to cause this impending poverty crisis on our own European doorsteps.

But once the drachma settles down on the currency markets and stringent exchange controls operate (and other old fashioned levers get pulled) then the Greek economy will start to sell things to itself, localise its economy initially; and then eventually its exports will become attractive to all of us.

Never mind the cheapest winter and summer sun holidays available for decades for us poor, benighted, north Europeans!

Hopes are rising that GM Europe will soon announce a 'reprieve' for its Ellesmere Port plant, after gaining support from the UK government on new model launches and supply chain efficiencies as well as concessions from workers on wages and flexible working.

GM Europe had earlier announced it was looking to cut up to 400,000 units of capacity a year from its European operations from 2014 (when its current deal with unions expires), with the firm suggesting that Ellesmere Port and Bochum in Germany were the most vulnerable.

That enabled the firm to kick off a fresh round of its well-honed divide-and-rule strategy, pitting plants and governments against each other in a bidding war to offer the most concessions to the firm. It's a typical feature of the auto industry, controlled as it is a in a top-down way by giant, mobile 'original equipment manufacturers' (OEMs) keen to screw down costs by playing off sites against each other.

Last week, the National Audit Office (NAO) published a report which found that private sector jobs created under the £1.4 billion Regional Growth Fund cost between £4,000 and £200,000 per job. For the whole UK, they estimate that the Fund will create around 41,000 net new jobs, with around 8,600 of those being located in the West Midlands.

The current unemployment rate for the West Midlands is around 9 per cent which is - when converted to something meaningful - is the lives of about 240,000 people.

Or, in other words, whilst welcome, these 8,600 new jobs might shave next to nothing off the total unemployment for the region.

In my own research into quality management I, like many others, was intrigued by the apparent dominance of Japanese companies.

All the studies I came across in the early 1990s emphasised the importance of understanding how Japanese companies had successfully learned the lessons of implementing improvement based on teamwork, using statistical process control, obsession with customer satisfaction and constant development of products and service through innovation.

The lexicon of management started to include expressions such as excellence and the quest to become 'World Class'. Significantly, commentators acknowledged, as far as the latter was concerned, it was Japanese companies that dominated any list of the top companies.

The message to others was that you must get better or get beaten and that Japanese companies had cracked the secret of success.

Recent announcements by two Japanese companies, Toyota and Sony, show that success is never permanent and that you have to work hard to remain 'the best'.

In the case of Toyota there is a belief that after a number of recent crises it is well on the road to recovery and will continue to be regarded as one of the world's most successful car makers.

However, Sony's misfortunes seem to be continuing and it has just announced record losses. Sony has discovered that the dominance it once enjoyed has gone and that competitors are outpacing it in terms of innovation and excellence.

What has gone wrong and what does it tell us about the relevance of Japanese management techniques that were once proposed as a sure-fire way to achieve success?

Given the current sluggish nature of the economy we need to pull on every possible lever to try to promote economic growth. One of the key aspects of this is ensuring that our workforce is fit and healthy, that people are in work and their skills are being fully utilised.

The coalition government's £1.4 billion Regional growth Fund has been severely criticised in a damning report (read here) by the National Audit Office (NAO). The report states that the RGF has failed to achieve value for money, spending as much as £200,000 generating a single job. And of particular concern the NAO notes that the RGF could have created thousands more jobs if the government had applied tighter controls.

Deputy PM Nick Clegg had previously claimed the fund could generate up to half a million jobs. I'd still like to see the calculations behind his claim as that figure is wildly out-of-line with the NAO's estimates. While the RGF may create 328,000 jobs in total, these are of various durations and the NAO estimates that only 41,000 extra full-time equivalent jobs could be created over the next seven years as a result of the RGF, at an average cost of £33,000 per net additional job (which is "broadly similar" to past programmes with comparable objectives).

Ever since the financial crisis began to subside the debate has raged about how we grow our economy based on manufacturing and trade. As many companies in the West Midlands will tell you, this is nothing new and they have been quietly exporting their way around the globe way before the need to find a new economic model began.

The world is constantly changing. This is perhaps an obvious statement. The question is therefore not whether change exists but the pace at which it occurs and, crucially, whether we are able to embrace it.

So, take two very British 'brands', Weetabix and snooker. Anyone who grew up in in Britain in the 1970s and, especially, the 1980s will probably have been exposed to both.

The announcement last week that a majority stake in the makers of Weetabix has been sold to Bright Food, China's second largest food company will probably come as no great shock. It is part of a growing trend for cash-rich Chinese companies to buy western brands.