ON the night before Expo organisers, exhibitors and their guests gathered at the Medieval Hall in Salisbury for a party.

The event, attended by the Mayor of Salisbury, Jeremy Nettle, was sponsored by HSBC in Salisbury and the guest speaker was the bank's senior economist, Mark Berrisford-Smith.

Andrew Hodder, president of Expo organisers Salisbury & District Chamber of Commerce and Industry, paid tribute to chamber executive officer Delia Hembury for her hard work in getting the show on the road.

He also thanked Phil Moody, senior commercial manager at HSBC in Salisbury for the bank's sponsorship.

Mr Berrisford-Smith, who studied economics at Sussex and London universities, now works at the bank's Canary Wharf office in London.

He advises on developments in the wider economy and his talk was entitled On Course for a Safe Landing - Prospects for the Global and UK Economies.

He said that economists were "a miserable bunch" - although he was feeling quite cheerful at the moment.

Despite some economists' gloom, the situation was nowhere near as bad as it was in the 1970s with the three-day week, miners' strike and three budgets in one year.

"We are now one of the world's strongest and most stable economies," Mr Berrisford-Smith told his audience.

"Unemployment is 4.7 per cent, half of what it was in the early '90s, half what it is in Germany, France and Italy, and lower than in the United States and Japan."

But, he said, what set us apart from those countries was that "we could win the world shopping championships".

"Nobody out-shops us," he said.

He said the foot-and-mouth outbreak had little effect on the wider economy and most people "shopped their way through it".

The current economic situation was driven by consumer spending.

The United States would have a strong 2004, but the next two years would not be as good.

He predicted that China would not continue its current rate of growth and that Europe would grow only modestly due to its lack of consumer morale and spending.

Inflation and oil were now back on the agenda and, despite record employment and a recovering manufacturing industry, Britain's consumer boom had to come to an end.

"It has gone on because of our access to funds we can borrow," he said.

"The problem we face is that, with consumers having taken on so much debt, we are more vulnerable.

"The only solution is hard work - we have to be more productive.

"And yet we are working the longest hours in Europe - we are still working while the average Frenchman is at home eating his dinner or in bed with his mistress!"