A review of Government land sales, lower corporate profits tax and restraint in Government spending emerge as key areas for change as five prominent Hong Kong business figures here give their views on what Financial Secretary Sir Hamish Macleod should deliver in his Budget for the new Financial Year.
AN inordinate amount of focus is generally placed on the level of Hong Kong's budget surpluses. Whereas in years past this was probably valid, it is much less so in 1994.
This is simply because in the budgets of the late 1980s (those of the ''Grey Squirrel'', Sir Piers Jacobs) and even in the first budget of Sir Hamish Macleod, there appeared to be a policy of creating surpluses for surplus's sake alone.
It was not clear where and when such surpluses would be spent or indeed if they would ever be spent. Hence, then, the rationale for calling for personal and corporate tax cuts (because, for instance, there were significant surpluses) and, hence, the focus on surpluses.
That policy no longer prevails; and certainly the prospect of abundant surpluses no longer exists. Surpluses yes, healthy surpluses, perhaps. Abundant surpluses, no.
The planned, and in my view essential, infrastructural expenditure for the rest of this decade will not only result in deficits in several forthcoming years, but will also eat significantly into our fiscal reserves - so much so that the real values of those reserves will plunge.