There is no better news than a government department making money. The announcement that Hongkong Post recorded a $225 million profit in 2004-2005 - a 1,223 per cent increase over the previous year - is a strong antidote to the usual dose of pathetic reports about official waste. The size of its profit is huge, and the rate of increase spectacular: that is how the figures look to ordinary people, who are delighted to hear that postal fees will not rise. The post office began operating as a trading fund 10 years ago. Under that arrangement, it runs on a commercial basis and relies on fees rather than funds voted from the public purse. Its apparently stellar performance has prompted some commentators to hail it as evidence that the trading-fund policy has been proven to work, and now is the time to privatise it. Look closer, however, and one finds that the department has little to boast about. Although $225 million looks like a big sum, what matters more is the size of the profit relative to the sum invested to generate it. The government has set a uniform yardstick - rate of return on fixed assets - as a means of measuring the performance of its five trading funds. Every year, the rate for each department is agreed with the financial secretary. For Hongkong Post, the bad news is that it only achieved an 8.1 per cent rate of return against a 10.5 per cent target. The post office's glowing annual report, published for public consumption, has not highlighted its underperformance, but the facts are all there. Its actual rate of return can be found in the profit-and-loss account on page 78, and the target rate on page 87. Similar digging through the accounts of other trading funds reveals that Hongkong Post was the only trading fund that failed to meet its target. The trading fund division of the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department was the best performer. It achieved a 34.7 per cent rate of return, against a 13.5 per cent target. The profit that it generated through charging fees for servicing other government departments, at $364 million, was also the highest. The next-best performer was the Land Registry, which earned $138 million from public fees, and had a 32 per cent rate of return compared with a target rate of 10 per cent. The Office of the Telecommunications Authority reported a $65 million profit and a 29.7 per cent rate of return, against a 14.5 per cent target. The Companies Registry earned $85 million, achieving a rate of return of 18.8 per cent compared with a target of 10 per cent. It is interesting to note that all their accounts adopt the same style of presentation, failing to put the achieved and target rates of return side by side for easy comparison. Perhaps the government does not want to focus public attention on the figures. After all, for the trading funds that appear to make huge profits and achieve high rates of return, it would be logical to ask if their clients are being overcharged and if their fees should be reduced. What are the ethics of government departments making profits from providing essential public services that only they can provide? Despite their seemingly healthy finances, how do they compare with their public-sector counterparts overseas and the closest private-sector alternatives? Would they lose their edge if their status as virtual monopolies was to disappear? These questions will have to be carefully considered before trading funds are corporatised or privatised. In any case, Hong Kong Post does not seem to qualify as the first candidate to go down that route. C. K. Lau is the Post's executive editor, policy
