4
But the Hong Kong Government has made
outstanding progress in many fields over the
past few years. The British Government both
the present one and I believe the last one is
well aware of the progress made in Hong Kong
and on the whole is well satisfied with the rate
of progress in the areas you mention. You must
relate progress here to the almost complete lack
of natural resources coupled with the constant
inflow of people from China and more recently
Without any doubt, there has been great
improvement in the social conditions over the
past few years. These improvements have to be
achieved step by step and they compare very
favourably with conditions in other parts of
Vietnam.
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Asia and indeed with much of the rest of the
world.
5
5)
Should Hong Kong change its taxation policy to obtain more from profits and raise income (sic) tax in order to pay for more social services?
A. With its lack of natual resources, Hong Kong has
to depend very much on investment to provide
jobs for its people. Therefore, it has to keep
its policies of comparative economic freedom
and low taxation so as not to discourage
enterprise and foreign investment. As you will
know the rate of expansion of social services
is not entirely a function of the amount of
money available. People have to be trained,
systems developed and so forth. There has to
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