7386 D073815 140M 5/74 Cr.P.C. Gp.839/3
NOTHING TO BE WRITTEN IN THIS MARGIN
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account. Some overseas borrowing was undertaken for
the first time last year to cover the deficit expected
as a result of the fall in revenues due to the
recession. It is for consideration whether a greater resort to domestic and foreign borrowing should not become a normal feature of the fiscal system.
6.
Hong Kong's present philosophy has also precluded
the use of other tools of fiscal and monetary management (eg control of the money supply) which have become increasingly important since the detachment of the Hong Kong dollar from sterling in 1972. This has been in part attributed to unwillingness to set up a central monetary authority; and there has been considerable official concern in the UK over possible conflict of interest between the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation's commercial activities and its rôle as
the Government's banker.
The basic philosophy has also inhibited the Government
re greeing from prescribing comprehensive financial (and
industrial) statistics.
7. And finally it is for consideration whether too great attachment to Hong Kong's free port status has not imposed unnecessary limitations on the revenue
obtainable from indirect taxation.
Social
8. The Government's current social programme is
concentrated in four main areas:
(a) a ten-year housing plan designed to provide additional housing for another 1.8 million people;
(b)
a five-year plan for the development of existing social welfare services (eg a means- tested public assistance scheme, non-contributory allowances to "vulnerable groups" and emergency relief) to include improved community services
for deprived groups eg the disabled;
(c) an education plan to provide by 1979 education up to the age of 14 for all children in Hong Kong and five years secondary schooling up to 16 for 40% of the children;
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/(a)