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I sometimes hear it said that the Hong Kong Government has much to learn from certain other governments on economic matters. That, for example, the Government of Singapore plays a more active and more extensive role in the economy then we do in Hong Kong and that this in some way gives Singaporean businesses a competitive advantage. I do not want to belittle in any way the rapid progress made by our friends in Singapore and the successes which they have achieved. But Hong Kong performance compares very favourably with Singapore's record. Let me quote just two comparisons.
* During the 1980s, Singapore's investment rate was about twice that of Hong Kong's. But, remarkably, our productivity growth was about twice that of Singapore's.
* Hong Kong's citizens have benefited more from economic growth than have Singaporeans. In Hong Kong, growth in consumption has kept pace with growth in output, whereas in Singapore, consumption has in recent years been growing at about half the rate of output.
There is nothing in these simple comparisons which should lead us to question the fundamentals of our economic policy. What these figures demonstrate is that Hong Kong's experience of putting our faith in markets and enterprise pays off for the whole community. That business men and women have a better record of picking the winning investments than governments. But I would be astonished if there was anyone here today who is surprised by this conclusion.
Having got all that off my chest, I now want to talk about an issue which I know is of great concern to the business community: the availability of labour. The General Labour Importation Scheme dates from 1989 when there were serious bottlenecks in the labour market.
* There were then more than 100,000 job vacancies.
* At the same time, the unemployment rate stood at an all-time low of 1%.
Since then, the labour market has changed significantly. This year, the labour force has been expanding at a rate of 4.3% or by about 120,000 workers. The net rate of creation of new jobs has been 2.6% or about 78,000 new job opportunities for the year. The consequence has been a rise in unemployment to 3.5% of the labour force. This is low by the standard of other mature economies but it is, nonetheless, a major concern to us in Hong Kong.