ROYAL WORTH (2)

If Denmark wants to sell things to Australia, then they send the Crown Princess, who hails from Tasmania. For China, the head honcho is required.

China is a key export destination for Denmark. The areas where Denmark is world class (welfare solutions, green energy, and processed agricultural products) are all ones where China is, or is likely to be, a big consumer. And the population over there is many times the size of that over here. If you can just get your foot in the door, then double digit export growth should be possible.

Hence last week's state visit to China. While the Queen joined the Chinese president's wife in reading Hans Christian Andersen stories to enthralled primary school children (the author is well-known in China, though where he comes from is not), 150 Danish companies were busy networking and trying to stitch up deals with their Chinese counterparts. Perhaps the most important for the long term was China's decision to allow Denmark to supply it with processed agricultural products, the first foreign country to be given that status. The Danes are brilliant at filling consumers' stomachs with sausages, liver pate and such like; and they have shown in Japan that they can cater to Asian taste buds. This could be a real winner.

It's not clear whether the Queen herself, a pensioner with a dodgy knee, likes being wheeled out as a turbo-charged export saleswoman. If she doesn't, she was her usual polite and diplomatic self. But whatever her personal views, she has demonstrated yet again that the institution of monarchy, anachronistic in many ways, can still pay its way.

Walter Blotscher