"We don't have a Nimbus 2000 broomstick," complained 15-year-old Yin Yuxi, referring to the transport of choice for fictional boy wizard Harry Potter, the creation of British author Joanne "J. K." Rowling.

Others chipped in, saying that little of the vast range of tie-in Harry Potter merchandise available to children in Britain was sold in China.

One girl even had to get her mother to knit her a scarf in the colours of Hogwarts School, the establishment Potter attends in the series of hugely popular novels chronicling his adventures, she said.

"Well, we will have to get British companies to sell them," said Brown, whose main business on the trip was slightly weightier matters such as China's exchange rate and the EU arms embargo on Beijing.

"It is a good way to make money," he said.