Forecasting financial markets is all but impossible. Given the wild volatility of the Hang Seng Index, any pundit who in 1997 dared predict its level on the 10th anniversary of the handover - or the rental value of top-notch office space in Central or HSBC's prime lending rate - would almost certainly have ended up with egg on his face.
But if that same pundit had attempted to forecast the exchange rate of the HK dollar in 2007, the chances are he would have been bang on. Because mainland authorities left the monetary system well alone, Hong Kong's exchange rate today is almost exactly where it was 10 years ago, within a whisker of HK$7.80 to the US dollar; locked in place by the currency board mechanism the city introduced in 1983.
If official pronouncements can be believed, that is also where Hong Kong's exchange rate will be in 10 years' time.
Not everyone is so sure, however. As Hong Kong's economy has become more and more integrated with the mainland's, suspicions have grown in the city's financial community that the government is preparing to abandon the link to the US currency and peg the Hong Kong dollar to the yuan.
Officially, Hong Kong authorities give the idea short shrift. In May, Joseph Yam Chi-kwong, chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), reiterated his position that 'the Hong Kong government has no intention to use the renminbi as the anchor currency for the Hong Kong dollar'.
The view of the government, and many private-sector economists, is that Hong Kong's currency board has served the city admirably over the years and that it should remain in place for the foreseeable future.