CONFIDENTIAL
Finence
Revenue and menditure
them is out of the question.
All attempts to improve the
trade union structure have failed in spite of the Hong Kong
Government's efforts to promote trade union education and the efforts of some international trade union organisations.
PUBLIC FINANCE
30. Hong Kong receives virtually no financial aid from
Her Majesty's Government. Since the end of the last wor, with one or two exceptions, it has run a substantiel surplus on the recurrent budget, from which it has financed its own development expenditure, which has been on a massive scale. The housing programe in particular has been an outstanding success, and has been carricù through entirely from local resources. Aid iron the United Kingdon has been limited to grants towards higher education projects (the two universitics and technical education) and a loan and grants for the
development of Kai Tak airport. It is a sore point in Hong Kong that since 1945 we have not felt able to make
regular aid allocations to the Colony.
Our reason is that
they are able to manage without; if they run short of development finance, our general attitude has been that they should raise local loans (the public debt is very low) or increase taxation. But since we provide no aid, we cannot
the ultimate exercise control over their financial policies;
responsibility of the Secretary of State is in practice purely
>
formal, and they are to all intents and purposes financially
autonomous.
31. Annual revenue and expenditure have nearly doubled sincə 1963 to £170m. and £139m. respectively in 1969/70.
There
was a budget deficit in 1959/60 (£2.8m) and in 1965/66 (£8.Em) but in all other years since 1947 surpluses have been realised.
/A surplus ...
CONFIDENTIAL
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