Inside Out | Hong Kong must brace for long slog of economic recovery with patience and a brave face

As we emerge from Typhoon Saola’s battering and count the damage, disruption and economic cost, there can be no quality more important than patience and a brave face.

All the more so for Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po as Saola adds to the mountain of challenges hampering Hong Kong’s recovery from 2019’s street riots and three years of Covid-19 trauma.

The latest economic numbers suggest we are at last beginning to recover from the most difficult period in more than four decades. Data released for the first half of 2023 has lifted the growth forecast to 4-5 per cent for the year.

While goods exports are sharply down (15.2 per cent year on year) as China’s imports continue to contract, our service exports have leapt by almost 23 per cent. Earnings from tourists – which crashed to near zero for 30 months – have jumped eight-fold since the start of the year.

While there is still a lot of media chatter about Hong Kong families fleeing the national security law to more secure pastures, and about international companies resettling in Singapore, the data suggests this has begun to reverse.

After the loss of around 113,000 residents between mid-2021 and mid-2022, which trimmed Hong Kong’s population to around 7.3 million, the Census and Statistics Department says our population has rallied back to 7.5 million.