Sir,
Introduction
I shall do my best not to turn the closing stages of this
interesting debate on His Excellency's annual review of the
Government's policies and programmes into a mini-budget debate.
We have a long tradition in Hong Kong of limiting ourselves,
deliberately, to an annual statement of account. Apart from our
supplementary estimates procedure, the authorities contained in
the Approved Estimates of Expenditure remain valid throughout
the year;
and, generally speaking, proposals for changes in tax
rates or in fiscal policy are always announced in the context of
the annual statement of account. This is not to say that commentary is inappropriate during a year. As we are currently
passing through rather strenuous times, I welcome this
opportunity to state the Government's view on the present
course of the economy and I shall take "inflation" as my
central theme. In the latter part of this speech, I shall
deal with several proposals put forward for improving the
prospects of our economy in the longer term.
(1)
2.
I Inflation
Unofficial Members' worries
Four honourable Members have provided me with succinct
texts for my analysis of "inflation". Mr. James Wu believed
that "very high domestic demand" has "stunted export growth"
and that "there is no substitute for reduced domestic demand
and increased exports"; Mr. Hilton Cheong-Leen said "we are
today faced with a situation where too much money is chasing
after too little land" creating "unhealthy speculation and spiralling land costs"; Miss Dunn argued that "domestic
inflation
is a direct
outcome of excessive domestic
demand coupled with a high level of Government activity";
...
and
/Mr.