ENG-1981 — Page 18

REVIEW

5

Positive non-intervention fits the-sky-is-the-limit outlook of Hong Kong's people. There has been, as a result, an on-going proliferation of small businesses, maximising Cantonese entrepreneurial skills where small is beautiful and yet providing also the right climate for the Shanghainese with greater organisational ability, who see bigger as desirable. But in Hong Kong there is nothing comparable with the big Japanese firms. Even the Hong Kong 'hongs' are conglomerates of sometimes hundreds of relatively small firms. And the developing Hong Kong multi-nationals usually go abroad investing in relatively small, well-dispersed factories.

Hong Kong is essentially an example of what the individual will do when driven by the desire for dignity through self-betterment, given freedom of action in an increasingly sophisticated competitive society. Of course, it produces hard luck as well as happy stories. No one props up an unviable business. The overall result shows that the chemistry in our pressure-cooker produces extraordinary dynamism.

External Trade

Hong Kong is a mere dot on the bottom of the map of China. Yet it vies with Italy as the world's leading exporter of garments, that usually are better sewn and designed than its competitors. It makes products that cause consternation in the European Economic Community where the cry for protection at the expense of their own consumers is apparently the only way seen to counter Hong Kong's efficiency.

Garments are not the only field in which Hong Kong excels as a result of self-betterment that produces open-mindedness, understanding and even sympathy in any domestic or external situation. Hong Kong exports more watches than Switzerland and more toys than Japan. It has more merchant shipping tonnage on the Seven Seas than Greece. Its modern container port is third in through-put after Rotterdam and New York.

Hong Kong's money, gold and commodity markets are first to open daily on the international 24-hour time clock and they influence trading throughout the world. As the third financial centre of the world Hong Kong syndicates bank loans, not just for Third World development, but to accommodate even some of its trade rivals. After Zurich, it is the world's major overseas buyer of New York stocks and shares that finance United States industry.

But that is only one dimension of what Hong Kong has accomplished. It is an immense open market for all the world's producers because it must import everything it uses to feed its export-led industries, except for the energy, diligence, enterprise and skills of its own labour. For instance, it is the world's third biggest buyer of textiles which it makes-up into the garments it exports. It is also an enormous entrepôt, not just for China but any country that wants to use the entrepreneurial skills of the Cantonese to increase sales in Asia. Now that the Cultural Revolution is out of the way, China is increasingly using these Hong Kong market facilities. Something over 40 per cent of China's foreign earnings for investment in the development of its own resources are earned by China serving Hong Kong's domestic market and using Hong Kong's re-export facilities. Where else in the world can a country, like China, export even water and get paid for it in foreign currency? Japan is perhaps a more sophisticated trading partner on much the same scale. It provides a host of semi-processed items for assembly into finished products on Hong Kong work benches. And it supplies the domestic market with an array of consumer durables that grace most Hong Kong homes. It also uses Hong Kong's financial and re-export facilities to distribute its finished products to other parts of Asia. As a result, Hong Kong has formidable trade gaps with both China and Japan from unrequited imports. And Japan still