1
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
caf10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
NP 18
19
20
-721
Dr.
Mr Daniel TSE : st in Cantonese);
Sir, last week I had the
privilege of representing the Hong Kong Government at the 44th Commission Session of the United Nations Economic and
Social Commission of Asia and the Pacific
the Pacific (ESCAP). which was
held in Jakarta. I am proud to say that although Hong Kong
is a small territory among the many countries that were represented there, and is only an associate member on
-
of our non-nation status, yet when we made our statement on the state of the economy of Hong Kong, people did sit up and listen, because our trade and gross domestic product the GDP figures were
†
So impressive. Delegates from many
many ESCAP
countries could not but be envious of our double-digit GDP growth in the last two consecutive years.<
bercent Our export growth rate was 23 in 1987, while imports from the
per cent ESCAP countries grew by 38. As a member of the Hong Kong delegation, I was proud of our presence in ESCAP despite our less than full membership status. But when I got to the point of projecting the trade and GDP growth figures for 1988, I
found myself sounding less forceful and convincing、 as I
の per cent forecasted a drop back of
drop back of GDP growth to 6 and of export ber cent, growth to 9.5%, because I was somewhat disturbed by the gross
inaccuracies of our projections in the last two years.
last October.
per cant,
#
le.
percent,
-In 1986, we projected a GDP growth of 4.5%. At turned out to
be 16%
per cent.
In 1987, we projected a GDP growth of less than 9!
ber cint And now we know that it is 13.6 or possibly higher, despite
the stock/market crash
of course, wedre
happy to see the large surpluses as a result
a.
of these
phenominal growth rates, and, if we had to err, it is much
better to err on
on the surplus side. But as I ponder on these large discrepancies, I cannot help but be reminded that these
22
23
24...
25
26
Js. 27 728
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
degree.
ما
باد
kind of large surpluses are a direct result of gross
underestimation of revenues, which in turn could arbitrarily suppress the level of
public expenditure to an unrealistic