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would hope and expect - that the rise in the money supply will be slowed down and I am currently examining ways in which this might be encouraged within the framework of Hong Kong's normal monetary arrange- ments." There is no suggestion, of course, that the normal monetary arrangements might need to be modified. But at any rate there is a hint that the automatic corrective mechanism may not be fully adequate or appropriate, and that there is a legitimate Government interest in the money supply.
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11. For what it is worth, my own guess would be that the press of events (and perhaps particularly pressures from outside the Hong Kong economy) will ineluctably continue to nudge the Hong Kong Government towards a greater involvement in monetary management. Sooner or later, more tools of management will be found to be necessary: however reluctant the steps along this road (or slippery slope) might be. But in saying this, I am very conscious that this view is not necessarily shared by the Financial Secretary; andhe probably would not share my view that in preparation for such an eventuality it would be no bad thing to begin thinking about the sort of institutional arrangements which might become necessary.
12.
I cannot pretend to have pushed my thinking on possible institutional arrangements very far. Indeed this is not a subject on which I can pretend to any expertise. But I will record a couple of points which struck me about the present arrangements.
13. The first point relates to public sector monetary management, such as it is at present. At levels below the Financial Secretary, it is difficult to avoid the impression of some looseness and even incoherence. (The contrast with the coherence which seems to be emerging on the economic and statistical side seemed to me fairly marked). Those chiefly concerned (the Banking Commissioner, the Attorney-General who manages the Exchange Fund, Ockenden, who advises within the Secretariat) are separated from one another physically and I suspect intellectually as well. They guard their own postures, and are sometimes and perhaps often less than fully aware of what the others are thinking and doing. But this is not to say that
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