We are hoping for a relaxation, particularly of some of these strict
Covid zero rules. But what sort of turns around the
picture here for Hong Kong, Iris? The main thing that I expect from the
policy dress is under what condition? That's the border between Hong Kong and
then in China. Can't be opened.
We would not have to tie me, but at least I want to know under what
conditions that will happen. We are also looking at some potential
relaxation of visa rules to try and lure talent.
And that's certainly what we saw from Singapore about five or six weeks ago.
I mean, there's always this comparison between Hong Kong and Singapore.
What brings Hong Kong back, though, is a key financial hub.
I think the first thing is that opening the borders with mainland is very
important. Now, I understand that many businesses
are holding all the expansion in Hong Kong because it lost this row.
It can't open the border with mainland. The second thing is that people I think
it's some kind of misconception of the national security.
And then also that I think that's the main thing also.
And that actually makes people hesitate hours before we move on to mainland
China. Let's have a look at the state of Hong
Kong right now from an economist perspective.
Where are we with this economy, which is essentially contracted hugely in the
last two years? Yes.
And especially if we look at not only the economic indicators, but also the
the forward looking stock indexes, we see that we are actually
in a very dire situation. OK.
What do you think? If you look through the prism of
Beijing, how do they really see Hong Kong now and how are they looking at
themselves? Given what we heard on Sunday from Xi
Jinping in his speech to the Congress, I think the tone on Hong Kong has not
changed in the in the 20th party Congress reports by sea.
So we shouldn't imagine or think too much
about that in that direction. But John Lee's
policy address could actually reflect some of those continuation of Hong Kong
policy by mainland China. So that means
that measures will be meshed with those in mainland China, at least for some
time. And therefore, the real retail
activities may not be very upbeat, although we see some recovery in Hong
Kong as well as in mainland. But we shouldn't be expecting very
upbeat retail growth. How bad do you think those third quarter
GDP numbers are going to be from China when we finally get them in?
And what do we read into the delay of that data, too?
So I don't saying that the delay is is is
anything to to be related with the numbers itself.
So the numbers I have is I forecast is four point four percent year on year and
the full year is three point six percent.
So it pains actually not a very good picture.
But recovery should have picked up.
All right. When it comes to the overall recovery
and let's get back to the Hong Kong picture, because you touched on
inflation yet there. You touched on the consumer retail.
And I know that is one piece that you say picking up and we know that people
want to spend. What about when it comes to wages
growth, though, and how much does that impede the recovery?
Good question, actually. Hong Kong has has some some kind of
inflation, not as fierce as US or UK or Europe, but we had some kind of
inflation from the gasoline prices. So and wages, on the other hand, is
affected by the whole economy, which is not not doing very good.
So it means that wage growth should be should be very low.
And we have already seen many redundancy in the past few years.
So even the jobless rate is now coming, coming, but it just not going down at a
very good speed. So what we should expect from wages is
that dash could be no change in wage growth or some kind of
downward adjustment for some industries, although in some industries, very simple
airlines, they may see some growth in wages, but not to the overall economy,
not to all the industries.