TNAG-0735-FCO40-939-Policy-objective-for-the-developing-of-Hong-Kong-in-the-1980-1978 — Page 199

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to that presently exercised by the Commissioner of

Banking in respect of licensed banks.

THE PUBLIC FINANCES

63

This brings me to the present state of our public finances, which I will deal with very briefly. This year's total revenue is now expected to exceed

the original estimate by a quite considerable amount,

perhaps by as much as £1 billion. Almost all largely

due to bouyant land sales. A large part of

A large part of the increased

revenue is being absorbed in increased expenditure on

both recurrent and capital accounts. We have, for

example, incurred additional expenditure, not provided

for in the Estimates, as a result of the 1978 civil service

salary awards, and of the decision to reduce the qualifying

age for the old age allowance scheme, from 75 to 70, in one

step rather than two as originally planned. It is, however,

on the capital account that we expect a substantially

higher level of expenditure than provided for in the

approved Estimates. This is largely accounted for by the

Public Works Programme as such, and Housing. Higher

prices account for a part of this increase, but we

have also made good progress on existing contracts and

earlier starts on new projects. It is too early to

indicate with any precision the likely budget outturn,

but there can be little doubt that there will again be

a surplus this year.