With mainland
China rapidly easing up on its dynamic zero-Covid policy, the critical question confronting
Hong Kong now is whether it wants to get ahead of the curve by removing most (if not all) of its remaining Covid restrictions. Failure to do so may well leave Hong Kong as the last jurisdiction in the world in 2023 to still have pandemic restrictions from 2020.
There is little doubt that
Covid restrictions in Hong Kong have delayed, quite unnecessarily, the economic recovery that should have occurred in the second half of the year, if not earlier. In the third quarter of the year, Hong Kong’s economy shrank by a shocking 4.5 per cent compared to a year ago. This comes after two consecutive quarters of contraction (of -3.9 per cent in the first quarter and of -1.3 per cent in the second quarter). In contrast,
Singapore’s economy grew by 4.4 per cent in the third quarter, after rising 4.4 per cent and 3.8 per cent in the first and second quarters respectively.