Thursday, March 1, 1973
ESTIMATES OF GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT
One of Five Booklets On The Budget
The Government's first-ever Estimates of Gross Domestic Product
was one of five publications tabled at yesterday's Legislative Council meeting,
all of them related to the 1973-74 budget.
The estimates show that the total gross domestic product, at market
prices, rose from $10,890 million in 1966 to $19,597 million in 1971, showing
an average increase of 13 per cent per annum over the six-year period.
During the same period the per capita gross domestic product rose
from $3,000 to $4,844, indicating an average annual increase of 10.1 per cent.
Compiled by the Census and Statistics Department, the estimates and
appendices run to more than 30 pages and include analyses of personal consumption
expenditure on food, alcoholic beverages, tobacco, clothing and personal effects,
rent, rates, water, housing maintenance charges, fuel and light, furniture,
health expenses, transport, recreation and entertainment.
They also cover expenditure on fixed capital formation, defined as
H
the gross value of investment in land, buildings and construction, plant, machinery
and equipment.
In its introduction the report points out that reliable national
income accounts cannot be produced without an adequate set of economic statistics,
In Hong Kong these statistics are not yet well developed.
However, preliminary estimates of gross domestic product were derived
from expenditure, using only information readily available for this purpose.
/Another