'Given the uncertainty about global growth prospects, a recession next year is a clear and tangible risk for Hong Kong.'
Nigel Chalk
IMF mission chief for China and Hong Kong
I like expressive adjectives, too, but it's hard to picture a clear and tangible risk. If it were clear it would be more insurable prospect than risk and if it were tangible we could touch it. Mr Chalk has in any case avoided this vain attempt by forecasting continued growth rather than recession for us.
One must make allowances, however, when looking at the International Monetary Fund's regular reports on Hong Kong. These people do not have the freedom enjoyed by nasty, irresponsible, muck-obsessed journalists. They are part of the system. They have to say nice things. Thus the first sentence of their appraisal speaks of Hong Kong's record as 'dynamic and compelling'. It keeps the welcome mat glued down for them at our government's front door, you see.
And if the rest of the appraisal has that ponderous wordy ring of 'ho-hum-nothing-new-here', well, let's not have it said again that a journalist is your first stop if you want to be told the obvious.
Although I expected sesquipedalian circumlocutions I thought we might at least get a meandering warning of the dangers of misallocation of capital. The report might, for instance, have hinted that we need not be quite so gung-ho on that HK$67 billion high-speed railway to the border when it was only undertaken at Beijing's behest and Beijing is now reconsidering its entire high-speed railway programme.