XN000022-1995-10-12 — Page 11

-

10.

I have two suggestions for you Mr Governor. With regard to the changes in the productivity of our labour force and the causes for the changes, the Government should start immediately to study these aspects. And secondly, can the Government come up with specific proposals to increase productivity in different sectors? I think the Government should work hard in these respects.

Governor: Thank you. I'm not sure on what basis the Honourable member tells me that our official statistics on productivity are wrong. I have to say that until it's proved otherwise I'll continue to believe the figures that are given me by our official statisticians and by the Government economist. Where I accept the Honourable gentleman's argument is that there's no reason for being complacent about our economic performance, no reason for being complacent about our continuing ability to compete successfully by continuing to raise our productivity levels. Now the most effective way we can raise our productivity is by ensuring that we have an increasingly skilled and highly trained work-force and that we continue to invest in the machinery that work-force uses and invest substantially in the production of wealth. In the last three years, net capital investment has, I think, increased by 31 per cent which suggests that we are still investing pretty substantially and there are, I think, this year, 155,000 men and women in Hong Kong who were in some sort of part-time education trying to increase their vocational skills or their professional qualifications. So I don't think anybody in Hong Kong, least of all the Governor, is complacent about this issue. Increasing productivity will continue to be the way in which Hong Kong earns its living in the world.

President: Dr Law.

Dr Law Cheung-kwok (in Chinese): Now if you do not know how to assess productivity accurately, while always emphasising that productivity is very important, then you are being irresponsible. Now, I can tell you very certainly that you won't be able to get five economists in the private sector who will agree with these figures.

President: Governor, take it to be a question.

Governor: Well, on the contrary, looking at the figures on our economy produced by private sector economists and comparing them with the figures produced by Government economists, I think we normally find that we're about in the middle of the pack. But if the Honourable member has a real substantial intellectual case to make against our measurement of productivity, then we'll be delighted to take delivery of it. Unlike the Honourable member, I think I'm right in saying this, I don't have the great advantage of belonging to what I think is called "The Gloomy Profession". I'm not an economist. I also accept what I think was implicit in the Honourable gentleman's view that if you have ten economists in a room you have ten different views, but I'll be interested in the outcome of the Honourable member's dialogue with my economist colleagues in the Administration.