'Be calm, Hong Kong, and have no fears. Your problem starts in 40 years.' (nod to Dr Seuss) The Asian Development Bank says it is time for Hong Kong to start worrying about its ageing population.
In its annual Asian Development Outlook, the high-living Manila-based bank says the rising proportion of old people in Hong Kong's population will have an increasingly large impact on government resources.
'Some estimates indicate the fiscal pressures created by the need to service an ageing population could lead to a public debt-to-GDP ratio that exceeds 20 per cent in about 40 years,' the report states.
Mighty long time that, and you may also have noticed the precision of a forecast phrased in such terms as 'some estimates' and 'could lead'.
It is understandable that the ADB should be concerned about age. It has itself long outlived its usefulness.
But ageing populations are a recognised problem for government social-support programmes across the world and it is worthwhile putting our own position into perspective here.
As the chart shows, we are about where we could expect to be on the ruling guideline that the rich get older and the poor get kids. Our population bulge is in the 35 to 39-year-old bracket, which makes us a good deal less grey-haired than Japan but still a good deal older on average than that nation of relative infants, Malaysia.