HONGKONG is heading for another record surplus, with final calculations set to be even bigger than last year's $22.5 billion.
The Financial Secretary, Mr Hamish Macleod, is ready to announce a surplus of close to $20 billion in his March 3 Budget speech, based on figures for the first three quarters of the financial year.
But the finalised accounts for 1992-93, to be published in about June, may see the windfall boosted to a record level by a late flood of profits tax, land revenue and stamp duties.
These taxes traditionally force major revisions of the year's financial outcome, particularly in recent years blessed with a booming economy.
A key factor affecting the stock market's performance, and therefore the final financial benefit to the Government, will be the protracted Sino-British row over the constitutional package put forward by the Governor, Mr Chris Patten.
Mr Macleod is understood to be engineering a budget for next year under which the bulk of the surplus will be spent on one-off, non-recurrent items.