A
the next few weeks (for gasoline, for example, the increase
will be 60 cents from the current retail price of HK$6.18
per litre). This percentage increase should reflect the
price of crude oil having risen to US$25 per barrel. Any
further increase in the crude oil price will result in a
increase in the prices of refined products, and thus
On the basis of such an
larger
greater inflationary impact..
increase, coupled with certain
supplementary information
and assumptions. the overall effect on the Consumer Price
Index (A) is estimated to be an increase of nearly one
1
percentage point (Table 3 for details).
10.
As regards the
manufacturing sector, industries
will face an increase in fuel cost and in the cost of those
material inputs which depend heavily on oil-based fuels for
their production. As far as fuel cost is concerned, the
textile finishing, bleaching and dyeing, basic metals, food
processing and beverages industries, being relatively more
energy-intensive than others, will be more significantly
increases in their overall
affected.
Nevertheless, the
production costs as a result of a 10% increase in fuel
to be only 0.8%, 0.6%, 0.2%, 0.1% and
price are
estimated
0.1% respectively.
For the
manufacturing sector as a
whole, the
corresponding increase in production cost would
average only 0.05% (Table 4).
Because the type of
manufacturing
activity in Hong
Kong is generally less
energy-intensive
than in other
industrialised economies,