XN000022-1995-10-12 — Page 18

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President: Mr Ambrose Lau Hon-chuen.

Mr Ambrose Lau Hon-chuen (in Chinese): Thank you. Mr Governor, in paragraph 33 of your policy address, when you talk about the economy and you say that the role of the Government must be to promote the efficiency, flexibility and competitiveness of our economy and you say that we must compete our way back to full employment and stable prices. Now in order to increase our competitiveness, will you consider this, that is; will you set up a statutory organisation, let's say an Economic Development Council, similar to the TDC, and it's main function is to advise the Government on important economic issues and also to have overseas offices in order to attract overseas investments to Hong Kong and also to work in order to promote our economy and if that's successful then I don't feel that you will have to explain the labour importation situation with Mr Ip and Mr Lau?

Governor: I have to say that I'm not attracted to that, which sounds to me a bit like central planning. Hong Kong has managed its economy astonishingly well, by any international standards, over the last decades and its done so by and large by standing back from business and from industry, letting entrepreneurs get on with the things they do best, providing a framework, an infrastructure, providing decent investment in education and training, providing decent investment in roads and tunnels and bridges and providing as open a market as possible. I am not attracted by the idea of sitting down and trying, even with the assistance of other businessmen and trade unionists, sitting down and trying to plan the economy or run the economy. I don't think that's been the Hong Kong way. I don't think it offers any improvement over our position today, which is one in which there are reputable international bodies which think we're one of the most competitive economies in the world, one of the most business friendly and certainly the most free and I don't think they would take that view if we were to go in for old fashioned central planning or indicative planning.

So I quite understand that the proposal made by the Honourable Member is extremely well intentioned but I don't think it would be helpful. We shouldn't forget the fact that we're an economy which is growing at 5% a year. I read somewhere in the paper today, someone suggesting that we should be trying to 'kick-start the economy'. Kick-start an economy which is growing at 5% a year. Anybody in Europe or North America would think we'd taken leave of our senses. Try to kick-start an engine when it's going and you get into terrible trouble. We've grown at 18% over the last three years, we've seen a 43% increase in our exports in manufactured goods, a 31% increase in our services. We've cut taxes, we've increased the reserves by 57%. Do I want now to completely change our economic policies? No, I don't.