Census department's population projections begin to wobble
We see that the Census and Statistics Department has scaled back its population growth targets. This is not a surprise. The department's efforts at forecasting population growth have been lamentable. Clearly they are not as wide of the mark say as Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah's budget forecasts but they have been serious enough in the past to cause some economic embarrassment.
Projections for population growth in the western New Territories in the 1990s proved to be woefully wide of the mark. This led to some optimistic projections for the KCR's West Rail Line and subsequent disappointment at the losses it racked up in its early days. Interestingly, the department has been employed recently to support the government proposal to produce another 1,500 hectares of land to support a projected population growth of 1.8 million by 2039. It announced in March an ambitious and unpopular plan to earmark 25 waterfront sites for reclamation.
Yesterday's revision by the department lowers the projected population growth by 26 per cent. That's quite a deviation. In addition, the department's forecasts for immigration are way above the average for the past 10 years of 16,500. It is anticipating net immigration of about 45,000 a year over the next 17 years. If they are wrong, there's going to be a lot of unnecessary reclamation in some of Hong Kong's more attractive areas.
More French than Mandarin
Mike Smith, the CEO of ANZ Bank and former CEO of HSBC's Asian business, caused a bit of a stir at a forum in Hong Kong yesterday. He said culture and education were important to Australia-China relations, adding that French is the most widely taught foreign language in Australia and perhaps it is time for it to be replaced by Mandarin, given that we are in the Asian century.