The Economy | 49
innovative entrepreneurs. Moreover, it has a sizeable amount of foreign exchange reserves, a fully convertible and stable currency, prudent fiscal management and a simple tax system with low tax rates. In view of these virtues, Hong Kong has been ranked by the US Heritage Foundation as the freest economy in the world for 18 consecutive years. Similarly, the Fraser Institute of Canada has also consistently ranked Hong Kong as the world's freest economy. Hong Kong is ranked the world's most competitive economy for the first time by the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in 2011, side by side with the US, and remained to be the second easiest place to do business in the world according to the World Bank's Doing Business Report. Hong Kong has also been conferred the top triple-A credit rating by Standard and Poor's.
The size of the Hong Kong economy more than doubled over the past two decades, with its GDP expanding at an average annual rate of 3.9 per cent in real terms, faster than the average growth at 3.5 per cent of the world economy. Over the same period, Hong Kong's per capita GDP rose by nearly 80 per cent, posting an average annual growth rate of 2.9 per cent in real terms. Hong Kong's per capita GDP rose to a historic high of US$34,400 in 2011, one of the highest in Asia (Chart 2).
Chart 2
Gross Domestic Product
Index (1991 = 100)
US$
250
35,000
Real GDP (left scale)
Per capita GDP at current market prices (right scale)
30,000
200
150
100
25,000
20,000
15,000
10,000
5,000
50
1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011
Over the past two decades, the Hong Kong economy grew by an average of 3.9 per cent in real terms, outpacing the 3.5 per cent growth for the world economy.
Under the growing influence of globalisation and bolstered by deepening regional integration and vibrant growth in Asia, Hong Kong's trade linkages with other parts of the world have grown by leaps and bounds. Trade in goods and services both expanded by more than three times in real terms over the past two decades. In 2011, the total value of visible trade (comprising re-exports, domestic exports and imports of goods) reached $7,255 billion, equivalent to 383 per cent of GDP. This was considerably higher than the ratios of 222 per cent in 1991 and 233
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