the three levels. Urban Councillors sit on the urban District Boards; regio District Board members will sit in the Regional Council; members of Dist Boards and of the two second level Councils sit in the Legislative Council together with representatives of all the major functional organisations and sectors of Hong Kong society. The system as a whole is thus representative and closely knit; it is supplemented by a network of over 400 advisory bodies; it has evolved as a result of a continuing consultative process between the Hong Kong Government and the Hong Kong community.
25. Looking ahead to developments over the next 12 months the public will be consulted on recommendations stemming from a review carried out in 1985 of systems providing for redress of grievances. One possibility which is expected to be publicly examined is the establishment of an institution to enquire, on an independent basis, into complaints alleging maladministration by Government departments.
(e) Civil Service
26. Within the Civil Service the proportion of local officers holding directorate posts reached 50 per cent with an increasing number of local officers taking up senior positions. The Hong Kong Government announced that by continuing with their localisation policy they were confident that sufficient local people would be available to fill top posts in the Civil Service before 1997. As regards the Police Force, the Hong Kong Government accepted that localisation of the senior ranks had to be at a faster pace than hitherto achieved; a steering group of senior government officials was charged with recommending to the Governor how this objective was best to be attained without jeopardising either the Force's efficiency or its morale. Initial consideration was given to the possibility of introducing a limited compensation scheme on lines similar to schemes introduced into former British dependent territories at the time of constitutional change, which among other things, would enable pensionable overseas officers who were either required to retire, or superseded for promotion to make way for local officers, to be compensated for loss of career.
IV. STATE OF THE ECONOMY
27. The Sino-British Joint Declaration on the question of Hong Kong removed much of the shadow of uncertainty which had hung over the Hong Kong economy in 1983 and most of 1984. But the economy remained dependent on trade and hence vulnerable to external forces outside Hong Kong's control.
28. After a year of strong export-led growth, the Hong Kong economy showed signs of slowing down in 1985, in line with many other economies. For 1985 as a whole the estimated growth rate of Hong Kong's GDP was 44 per cent to 5 per cent, compared with 9.4 per cent for 1984. The future performance of domestic exports added an extra element of uncertainty to this forecast. Exports were increasingly affected by the growing threat of protectionism in Hong Kong's export markets.
29. The performance of the Hong Kong economy as a whole over the period of review was characterised by a fall in domestic exports, counterbalanced by a
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