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"When we have crossed the transitional period, it will be up to the SAR Government to decide what good use it will make of the reserves.
"But the SAR Government will need to adhere to the prescriptions in the Basic Law and, in particular, to continue to 'live within our means'.
"I would say that most of us welcome the additional comfort the very healthy reserves offer," he said.
Sir Hamish said the Government's budgetary policy was to keep the growth of Government expenditure in line with the growth of the economy.
He added that this did not mean that for every single year, Government expenditure must rise by no more than GDP.
"We have, in the past, been accused of a 'stop-go' approach. Our present approach is designed precisely to avoid 'stop-go': to ensure that, over time, the increase in Government expenditure will be contained within the trend growth rate of GDP," he said.
He added that over the three year period from 1993-94 to 1995-96 (in other words, using 1992-93 as the base year), the Government estimated that recurrent expenditure would have grown in real terms by 16 per cent, compared to the cumulative real growth in GDP of 17.2 per cent.
"Over the same period, capital works expenditure (at 1994-95 prices) will reach $83.2 billion, against a permitted expenditure ceiling of $93 billion," he said.
"All this growth in expenditure, I must add, has been funded by the additional wealth generated by the economy, not higher taxes," he added.
On the Government forecast of 5.5 per cent GDP growth for 1995, Sir Hamish noted that the most recent Financial Survey of the Asian Wall Street Journal, which regularly looks at key economic forecasts by 20 well-known analysts, showed that the mean GDP forecast for 1995 was 5.6 per cent (the lowest being 4.8 per cent, highest 6,2 per cent).
"They may of course be wrong, but it is perverse to give this consensus less publicity than one firm that has come out with a much lower forecast," he said.
Sir Hamish said other projections were reassuring too.