It will take something extraordinary to beat last year's achievements in the greater Pearl River Delta. Guangdong's economy had been officially forecast to grow at 12.5 per cent, but who knows what the final figure will be when the State Statistical Bureau releases the full details of its calculations (2005 was the year the bureau took over responsibility for releasing provincial gross domestic product statistics).
Hong Kong, whose economy is roughly the same size as the delta region's nine main cities combined, grew 8.2 per cent year on year in the third quarter, and was expected to record 7 per cent growth for the full year - nearly double what had been forecast at the beginning of the year. And Macau, with a tiny population of less than half a million, looked set to push its economy to near the US$12 billion mark, giving it a per-capita GDP almost on a par with Hong Kong's HK$24,000.
You might say that 2004 was more remarkable. But remember that its year-on-year growth rates were compared with the depths of the Sars crisis in 2003. Last year's was growth after a good year.
Now that US Federal Reserve chairman Allan Greenspan has sent the markets into a frenzy by commenting on the likelihood of fewer interest-rate rises in the near future, heaven only knows what this year holds in store for China's richest region. Indeed, barring the appearance of a serious pandemic, it is hard to see what could end this party in the foreseeable future.
Could property bubbles be popped? Interest-rate rises have yet to accomplish that in Hong Kong, while Shenzhen and Guangzhou seem to be in no danger, as there is plenty of supply in the pipeline, disposable incomes are soaring, and banks' bad debts are being cleaned up by cash-flush government backers.
How about a slowdown in external trade? Guangdong's exports were expected to hit US$225 billion last year, up nearly a third on 2004, the result of continuing heavy foreign investment and rapidly growing domestic investment by the private sector. The latter accounted for a quarter of exports in the first half of the year, up by more than two-thirds over 2004.