Lai See | Hard to take the Economic Freedom index seriously

Hong Kong was yesterday ranked the world's freest economy in the Index of Economic Freedom, which is put out by the Heritage Foundation in partnership with The Wall Street Journal. It's been published for 19 years and Hong Kong has won it every time. Yet the longer its goes on the more absurd it seems. It is of course true that Hong Kong is one of the easiest places in the world to set up a company and go into business. Yet to call it the freest economy in the world when the government owns all the land is patently absurd.

When asked how this element of Hong Kong's economy affects its rankings, one of the presenters, Ambassador Terry Miller of the Heritage Foundation, said that it had no direct bearing on the rankings, because of a lack of "comparable data". As we all know, the government's grip on land and the restrictive way in which it disposes of it has had a fundamental impact on the nature of the economy. It is no surprise that the city's richest tycoons made their money from property development.

Miller concedes that this is not an ideal situation. The thrust of the Heritage philosophy is that all good things flow from economic freedom - empowerment, happiness, better environment and so on - in the same way that some people believe "cleanliness leads to godliness". The index is at best superficial and misleading, but that doesn't stop the likes of the Hong Kong government from turning it into a propaganda opportunity.

Former US Securities and Exchange Commission chairwoman Mary Schapiro says that the mainland government has spurned a US request for help in cracking down on a string of alleged investment frauds. Speaking to ABC television, she said the lack of co-operation has stymied efforts to recoup investor losses in one of the largest sprees of alleged financial crimes in recent memory.