ABSTRACT
With the resumption of sovereignty by mainland China (the People’s Republic of China, henceforth to be referred to as China) in 1997, the Hong Kong SAR government maintained its pre-1997 economic framework of ‘laissez-faire capitalism’ and prospered, until the Asian crisis of the late 1990s dampened down expectations. Over the past two decades, the Hong Kong economy has more than doubled in size, with gross domestic product (GDP) growing at an average annual rate of around 5 per cent in real terms. This outpaces considerably the growth of the world economy and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) economies. Over the same period, Hong Kong’s per capita GDP doubled at constant price level, giving an average annual growth rate of 3.7 per cent in real terms. In 2003, even though the economy was temporarily devastated by the occurrence of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic, the economy still recorded a 3.3 per cent growth in real terms. At US $23,300 in 2003, Hong Kong’s per capita GDP was amongst the highest in Asia, next only to Japan. In the year 2004, its GDP grew by a remarkable 8.1 per cent in real terms.
