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were people who said that there would be a flight of capital, a "tidal wave" - those were the words used - a tidal wave of emigration was forecast. At the end of the year, one of our newspapers headlined its editorial with the words "The Bell is Tolling for Hong Kong Confidence".
Well, since then the bells have gone on ringing. We have had since 1989 a 34 per cent increase in GDP in real terms. We have had a 50 per cent increase in investment; exports of goods have increased by 116 per cent; exports of services by about 58 per cent; more tax cuts; fiscal reserves up 147 per cent. Ringing bells!
Fast forward the button and arrive at the winter of 1993, when Chinese officials were attacking us for the proposals that we had put forward to deliver on the promises that had been made by, among others, the cabinet to the people of Hong Kong in the middle 1980s for a measured process of democratisation. Every day there was a new fusillade and people forecast that the roof would fall in, that we would never be able to do business with China again.
What has happened in the last three years in Hong Kong? An 18
An 18 per cent increase in our GDP, a 31 per cent increase in investment, exports in goods up by 43 per cent, export in services up by 31 per cent, tax cuts in each of the last three years, our fiscal reserves increased by 57 per cent so they are at present standing at HK$151 billion.
Hong Kong has become over the last few years, as David was saying earlier, the world's fifth largest stock market. The Hang Seng Index, which was tipped to fall below 900 after the Joint Declaration now trades at about 10,000. Hong Kong, as David mentioned, is the fifth largest centre for foreign exchange dealing in the world.
As for doing business with China, we had our elections last month for the first time for a wholly elected Legislative Council. We had the biggest ever turnout in elections, just as Hong Kong was promised in the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law, it all went off extremely smoothly. In the summer before those elections, we concluded two major agreements with China: one after a long and elaborate series of discussions on the financing of the airport; one on the judicial transition, on the transition for the adminstration of justice and in particular for the important establishment of a Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong.
A couple of weeks after the elections, we had a very successful meeting in London between the foreign ministers of Britain and the PRC, at which a number of extremely important agreements on transitional issues were reached, particularly affecting the transition for the Civil Service. So the doomsters were proved wrong once again.