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The aspect of the year, and of our prospects, on which I wish
to speak to you, is that of our economic extemal relations.
This is, or should be, an export-led economy, and our export
performance, and factors in our domestic economy bearing on export
performance are vital to our existence.
Hong Kong's exports to major markets of Europe, North America and
Australasia
From the statistics available to the end of November, it looks
as if in 1978 the major markets for our exports continued to be the
USA, the Federal Republic of Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan,
Australia and Canada in that order.
Between them they took about 70 per cent of our total domestic
exports. Our prosperity is still very much going to depend on the
economic prosperity of these countries and on the degree of access we
can maintain to their markets.
Inevitably, the performance of our domestic exports to them varies
from year to year. For example, in 1977 we did particularly well with
our domestic exports to the United States.
But in 1978, as predicted this time last year, the rate of growth
in the value of domestic exports slowed down and looks as if it will be
around 10 per cent, largely reflecting the slower rate of growth of the
US economy.
But another reason for the fall-off in the rate of growth of
exports to this market was that by the end of 1978, we had fully utilised
our quotas for the more important stock items of trade as a result of
the more restrictive agreement operative since January 1 last year.
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