Hong Kong people have always responded favourably to calls to help victims of natural disasters, from those hit by floods in central China in the 1990s to those ravaged by the Asian tsunami on Boxing Day. Since the tsunami hit, almost $400 million, or $55 for every man, woman and child, has been raised, putting Hong Kong ahead of every other country in private donations.
Look closer, however, and we will find that Hong Kong as a community gives far too little on an ongoing basis to the needy overseas. According to last year's edition of World in Figures, published by The Economist, Hong Kong ranked 17th on the wealth league, with per capita gross domestic product at $181,428. But unlike its counterparts with similar levels of affluence, Hong Kong has only a minuscule foreign aid programme in the form of the Disaster Relief Fund.
Set up in 1993, the fund is usually topped up to $50 million every year by transfers from general revenue and makes disbursements in response to applications from aid providers. Following the tsunami catastrophe, it has depleted its coffers after authorising grants totalling $30 million.
By comparison, 11 countries enjoying similar levels of affluence - with per capita GDP plus or minus 5 per cent of ours - routinely give a lot more foreign aid through various forms of development assistance. Of these, nine were among the world's biggest bilateral and multilateral donors, as measured by their amount of foreign aid as a percentage of their total GDP. They were: Britain $186,576 (0.32); Netherlands $186,108 (0.82); Sweden $185,259 (0.81); Austria $182,130 (0.29); Finland $182,052 (0.32); Germany $175,578 (0.27); Canada $174,642 (0.22); Belgium $174,486 (0.27); and France 171,834 (0.32). The per capita GDP figures for two other places within the range, Singapore and Guam, were $162,630 and $157,950, respectively, but the amounts of their foreign aid were not available.
In 2003, some major foreign aid providers called on the government to increase the level of aid and broaden its scope of assistance beyond disaster relief. They noted that the United Nations recommended that rich countries should donate the equivalent of 0.7 per cent of their gross national product in overseas aid, while member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) donated an average of 0.4 per cent of GNP in 1998.
Hong Kong's GDP in 2003 was $1.23 trillion. We would have to donate $8.6 billion if we followed the UN's recommendation, and $4.9 billion if went the OECD way. But the call for more official foreign aid was rejected by the government.