Heritage Foundation drops HK from economic freedom rankings

Hong Kong will not be found on the latest rankings of the US Heritage Foundation’s annual Index of Economic Freedom, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Macau will also be excluded.

Hong Kong sat atop the conservative foundation’s annual Index of Economic Freedom for 25 years.

But it will be missing from the 27th edition of the index, being released Thursday, 

Instead Hong Kong is ranked with mainland China  in the 107th slot. China is "a mostly unfree economy,'' the foundation says.

In explaining the decision to remove Hong Kong (and Macau) from the index, the editors noted that while both special administrative regions “offer their citizens more economic freedom than is available to the average citizen of China . . . developments in recent years have demonstrated unambiguously that those policies are ultimately controlled from Beijing.”

In March, 2020, Hong Kong was ranked number two in the Index of Economic Freedom.

Hong Kong scored 90 or above in seven out of 12 components adopted for measuring economic freedom, though Hong Kong's overall score fell by 1.1 points from the previous year due mainly to a decline in the "Investment Freedom" score, which was largely the result of the social unrest in the latter half of 2019.  Hong Kong ranked second in the Index with an overall score of 89.1 (out of 100),  above the global average of 61.6.

At the time, the government expressed disappointment that Hong Kong, which held the world's freest economy title for 25 successive years, has dropped to number two. "But we welcome the Foundation's continued recognition of Hong Kong's various strengths and its awareness that the territory remains a dynamic global financial center with a high degree of competitiveness and openness. It is gratifying to note that Hong Kong attained the highest score among the assessed economies in terms of 'Fiscal Health', 'Business Freedom', 'Trade Freedom' and 'Financial Freedom'''.- Additional reporting: The Standard