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14
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Wednesday, March 13, 1974
he said:
imported
Turning to the rising prices of foodstuffs and other commodities,
"It is true that a large element of Hong Kong's inflation is
but it is equally true that there is profiteering and hoarding
by some unscrupulous merchants."
Dr. Chung referred to a list of statistics distributed a few
days ago to Umelco by the Secretary for Economic Services showing monthly
average prices of certain foodstuffs for 1972 and 1973.
He pointed out that in the case of pork, the average import
price during the last quarter of 1973 as compared with the corresponding
period in 1972 showed an increase of only $60 whereas the wholesale price
had increased by $85 and the retail price by $155.
In the case of poultry, the element of local inflation was worse,
with the average increase in retail price tripling the average increase
in import price.
The worst of these three cases was beef. "The average import
price in the last quarter 1973 was in fact lower than that in the first
quarter of 1972, but the average wholesale price had increased by 60 and
the average retail price by as much as $170," he said.
countries
On the subject of depreciation, he said rapid inflation in many
developed and developing alike in recent years had orcated
new problems.
One of the problems was the growing disparity in capital return between investment in appreciating assets (real estate property) and
investmont in depreciating machinery (manufacturing companies).
/Dr. Chung