Hong Kong registered its lowest rate of economic growth in more than two years in the first quarter, with a slowdown on the mainland having a knock-on effect.
SCMP, May 12
Maybe this town is changing but it certainly didn't feel to me like three months in which the economy grew by only 0.4 per cent year over year.
What is more, I think the hard numbers actually confirm what my antennae tell me. Two highly volatile components of GDP - net trade and change in inventory - have interwoven their uncertain influences to depress the official growth rate in a way that does not really reflect what happened.
Net trade in particular stands out. We have an unusual economy in that total trade - exports and imports together - is the equivalent of more than 400 per cent of GDP. The comparable figure for the United States is only 32 per cent.
Of course, it is only the net of these two - exports minus imports - that is taken as the contribution to GDP, and this is a much smaller figure. But it doesn't take much change in either exports or imports, or in their relative pricing, to bring about a big swing in the net figure.