Economic growth rates in Asia should be classified like the gear changes in a manual transmission car.
There are three speeds forward - 1-5 per cent, 5-10 per cent and probable nonsense.
There is one speed in reverse and do not try to set numbers on it. There is no reliable speedometer to clock it.
This happens to be more true of Hong Kong than most other Asian countries. There are immense problems in trying to measure the growth of an economy which has borders so open to capital flows they cannot be reliably tallied and which is built on trade in services rather than goods.
Even now the authorities have only the foggiest idea of what the balance of payments might be. For years, the International Monetary Fund has begged for the figures and all the Government has been able to say is that management of an economy operated under a currency board does not require them.
This is true, but the real reason they are not provided in anything but the roughest estimates is that the tools have never been available. It is one area in which the principle of laissez-faire is truly practised.