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HKK_013/1
RAZVE
- 6 DEC 1977
INDECONEIDENTIAL
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Mr Stewart (HKGD)
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cc:
Mr Quantrill
Mr Thompson
1. Attached is a copy of my Summary of the July 1977 World Bank's Special Economic Report on Hong Kong's Economic Policy. I intend to present it at the Standing Committee meeting on Friday.
2. I thought it might be useful for you and the rest of HKGD to have an advance look at what I intend to say. My summary, at seven pages, seems long, but the Report itself is nearly a hundred pages long (with 102 pages of technical annexes) and contains very little padding. Both the authors are very competent economists (the chapter on Manufacturing is excellent) and they have crammed the Report with concentrated histories, tight economic arguments (their exposure of the "Automatic Adjustment Mechanism's unwarranted justification for laisser-faire policies is nice, and rewarding to us) and recommendations which, though phrased gently, are radical.
3. If the Financial Secretary has read this Report he is probably very annoyed. It completely rejects large parts of his philosophy pointing out, as you in London have been for some time, that there is no economic justification for a lot of what he does. The need for trained economists to advise the Financial Secretary on matters of economic policy (the inference being that although there are trained economists in service with the Government the Financial Secretary doesn't listen to them before deciding major matters of economic policy) emerges slowly when reading the Report but is definitely in there at the end among the underlined conclusions (para 6.09).
8 November 1977
CONFIDENTIAL
Mark Hall
Mark Hull
Economists Department
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