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4.
50% of the Colony's foodstuff imports (by value) come from China, who
put up her prices by 22%, comparing Jan.-Sept. 1973 and 1972*. And
although 40% of vegetables are locally grown and most sea-fish locally
caught, "almost unprecedented" bad weather last year drove up prices of
both these groups in the Autumn. I have discovered no figure for
movements in the level of rice consumption: retained import tonnage,
however, rose slightly (+3%); this might, of course,
piling.
reflect stock-
Some relief to the wage earner came in the last quarter of
1973. On a seasonally adjusted basis the consumer price index fell by
1.7% between October and December mainly because vegetable prices
plunged (by 40% in Q4), as supplies returned to normal after the dearth
in September.
Property
The stock and property markets are closely linked, a high
proportion of quoted companies and of issues floated in the 1972-73
boom
G
carrying a property label. Since the stock market collapse
there has thus been some (though by no means a commensurate) shake-out
in property.
Generalisations seem difficult.
But, except for offices in
central areas, supply/demand pressures for most categories of private
building have been easing. This varies however to some extent with
location. In the residential sector a government study covering
10,000 transactions in private flats reportedly found that the average
selling price fell by 38% between Q2 and Q4 1973.
This will no doubt have been helped by a government rent freez
in mid-1973 on domestic premises not already "controlled", followed by
*This will raise a smile among those who recall how Financial Secretaries
used to sweat at the prospect of much smaller rises in the cost of Chinese foodstuffs in the days when the HK$ was "linked" to a falling pound!
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