HONG KONG AS A PARTNER IN WORLD TRADE
11
relatively few trading partners. Well over 80 per cent of its domestic exports, re-exports and imports are sent to, or come from, the top 10 destinations or suppliers and, in each case, more than two thirds are accounted for by the top four destinations or suppliers. Indeed, in 1985, as much as 56.1 per cent of domestic exports and 57.7 per cent of re-exports went to just two markets, the United States and China, and China and Japan between them supplied almost a half of all Hong Kong's imports. All this is clearly illustrated in Table 4.
Table 4
Proportions of Hong Kong's Trade in 1985 Accounted for
by the Top Four and Top Ten Trading Partners
Domestic Exports
Trading Partner
(%)
Re-exports Trading Partner_
(%)
Imports Trading Partner
(%)
United States
44.4
China
43.7-
China
25.5
China
11.7
United States
14.0
Japan
23.1
United Kingdom_
6.6
Japan
5.2
United States
9.5
West Germany
6.2
Singapore
4.2
Taiwan
9.0
Total Top Four
68.9
67.1
67.1
Total Top Ten
83.0
82.4
85.3
Source: Hong Kong Annual Report, 1986.
For many years the larger part of Hong Kong's domestic export sales have been concentrated in the consumer markets of the developed countries of North America and Western Europe, while her imports of raw materials, foodstuffs and some consumer goods have, in the main, come from neighbouring countries in Southeast Asia. This latter is what might be expected, since raw materials, semi-manufactures and most foodstuffs are more bulky in terms of their value, or more perishable, which tends to give nearby suppliers a competitive advantage. Hong Kong does, however, provide a good market for capital equipment, more sophisticated consumer goods and some foodstuffs from North America and Western Europe, and the convertible currency with which it pays for imports from other sources provides the countries concerned with the foreign exchange to help pay for their own imports from the advanced countries.
Re-exports and the China Dimension
The most dramatic development in Hong Kong's trade in recent years has, however, been the almost explosive growth in trade with China following the opening of the Chinese market to more external trade at the end of the 1970s. Hong Kong has all along been itself a good and expanding market for Chinese exports, both for its own use and for re-export; but, until the late seventies, it had sold little, if any, of its own domestic exports to China. That picture has now changed dramatically, as the following figures of Hong Kong's domestic exports to China since 1980 show:
$ billion
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1.6
2.9
3.8
6.2
11.3
15.2