Houston is pulling out all the stops to capitalise on the rare opportunity afforded by the odd decision to hold the 1990 Economic Summit of Industrialised Nations in the Texas cow town, from stating the uncomfortably obvious in its promotional slogan Houston’s Hot – hot for business is the intended message – to the willingness of its citizens to put themselves out in support of the community effort, and so it was that Rod Canion, president and chief executive of Compaq Computer Corp found himself booked as warm-up act as the general assembly of international press waited restively for the likes of Chancellor Kohl, President Bush and Mrs T to complete their deliberations and come and talk to them: The removal of barriers between East and West presents a tremendous opportunity to improve the economic health and stability of the world, he told the hard-bitten press corp – in terms of population, Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union together represent an even bigger opportunity than Western Europe – 420m people are sharing just 2m personal computers.
HOUSTON PULLS OUT ALL THE STOPS FOR SUMMIT
