In London, newsagents, sub-post offices and what used to be called grocers, with the three of them absorbed at times into a single unit, are now run almost exclusively by Asians. The same is true in other parts of Brittain: notably, Leicester, Coventry, Bradford, the West Midlands and some of the North-West. And this is just the most visible aspect of Asian business activity in this country. Asians are becoming prominent in all areas of commerce, though they are only around 2 per cent of the population. It's said that the next generation of City accountants will nearly all be Asian; and there are observers who expect to see power in the City of London becoming increasingly concentrated in Asian hands.

LRB 29 October 1987 | PDF Download