Far from losing its edge, Hong Kong is more competitive than ever

Hong Kong, we are told, is losing its competitive edge.

This grim warning was issued on Saturday by a certain Zhang Dejiang. Zhang, in case you're wondering, is chairman of the standing committee of the National People's Congress, which makes him the most important Communist Party official you've never heard of.

According to yesterday's Sunday Morning Post, he told a delegation from Hong Kong that the city will be "swept downstream if it does not forge ahead".

I'm going to be charitable here and assume it was whoever translated his warning rather than Zhang himself who was responsible for the mixed metaphor.

So suppress any mental image you may have of soggy blacksmiths, and let us examine Zhang's contention that "Hong Kong's competitive edge is weakening and will fade away if the city does not put its focus on economic development".

Unfortunately, measuring competitiveness is tricky. Economists talk about things like total factor productivity and unit labour costs, but the data for Asia is lousy.