Jake's View | Those Hong Kong export figures that are not quite what they seem

Exports may enjoy high single digit growth this year because of better than expected deliveries of electronic goods and smart phone accessories ahead of Christmas, according to the Federation of Hong Kong Industries.

Question: How much more growth do you get with a high single digit percentage of nothing than you do with a low single digit percentage of nothing?

Okay, I cannot really say that our domestic exports amount to nothing. As the first chart shows, they may have declined from the equivalent of 50 per cent of gross domestic product to only 2.6 per cent at present but that still amounts to about HK$55 billion a year, which isn't nothing.

Now let's work with this number. In the first place, it is not the raw export figure that counts. We need first to subtract the cost of required imports, which, in Hong Kong's case, is virtually everything of which the export is made. Only the value added has any impact on GDP. Let's reduce that 2.6 per cent figure to 1.3 per cent. It's probably less.