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I know that these calls for the Government to take a more active role in economic management are well intentioned. They are a reaction to the recent revision of our GDP growth forecast for the current year from 5.5 % to 5% - or, as I heard one critic, who would have baffled Kenneth Clark, say the other day 'only 5 per cent'. These calls also stem from anxiety about the recent rise in the level of unemployment. The unemployment rate seems to have stabilised at about 3.5 per cent for the moment (what Financial Secretaries 10 years ago used to define as full employment). Nonetheless, we in the Government share these concerns about jobs and, as I said in my Policy Address, we shall do every thing in our power to reduce unemployment.
What we will not do, however, is to take short-term measures which would damage the long term competitiveness and flexibility of our economy. I have two difficulties with calls for kick starting the economy. The first is that this approach seems to ignore the facts. The economy has not stalled. We are not drifting towards recession. On the contrary, no matter what time frame you take, the economic facts of life in Hong Kong are compelling testimony to the resilience and success of the
economy.
* Over the long term, Hong Kong has enjoyed economic growth in every one of the past 35 years. Our GDP has on average doubled every decade for the past 40 years.
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Over the medium term, the figures are equally impressive. In real terms since 1984 - the year when, after the Joint Declaration, many predicted that disaster lay ahead since then our GDP has increased by 84%, investment has increased by over 100 per cent, and, of course, foreign trade has boomed, with merchandise exports up over 350% and service exports up by almost 130%.
* Over the short term, our economic performance has been equally reassuring. Since 1990, GDP has increased by almost 30% in real terms, and we have settled into a pattern of steady, sustainable annual real growth of around 5%.