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GOVT HOUSE HK
increase and further migration.
increased by approximately
Hong Kong'c population has
one
million each decade, from
more than 2 million in 1951 to over 3 million in 1961,
upwards of 4 million in 1971 and 5 million in 1981. It is
now about 5.75 million. By the early 1960's most of the
potential working population were employed. Ever since,
The
apart from
from short periods of economic crisis such as that
following the world oil crisis in 1973-5, a situation close
to full employment has generally been maintained.
effect of this has been to spread increasing prosperity to
the labour Force as competition for labour led to rising
real wages. The real incomes of manual workers are now at
least four times higher than they were a generation ago in
the 1950's.
10.
The second period of Hong Kong's economic growth,
the decade from the mid-1960's to the mid-1970's, was опе
of greater political and economic turbulence. It opened
with a banking crisis in 1965 which brought to an end the
first property boom. This was followed by the so-called
'Star Ferry' riots of 1966
of 1966 and then by the disturbances of
1967 when the Chinese Cultural Revolution spilled over inlu
Hong Kong. A measure of recovery into the early seventies
produced a phenomenal stock exchange bubble which burst
spectacularly in 1973. Thereafter, the world oil
oil crisis
began to affect Hong Kong's economy and trade, leading at
first to rapidly rising inflation and then to a sharp