Govt and Paul Chan hit back at ‘unsupported’ pessimistic remarks by Stephen Roach

The SAR government and Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po have hit back at former Morgan Stanley Asia chairman Stephen Roach, saying his rather pessimistic remarks about the city’s future and economy are not backed by facts or data. 

The authorities’ response came after the prominent US economist maintained his view that “Hong Kong is over” and said the “one country, two systems” principle has become more characteristically Chinese. 

In a statement released on Wednesday night, the government said remarks made by “some individuals” overlooked the existing advantages and the current positive development momentum of Hong Kong. 

“Despite the fact that the external environment will remain complicated, the Mainland and Hong Kong’s economic growth is steadily improving, and even at a faster pace than some developed economies.” 

The government added that the real economic growth rates of the mainland in the first quarter of this year and the whole of last year were both above 5 percent, higher than the respective target. 

Hong Kong’s economy is also growing steadily and has achieved a positive growth rate of 3.3 percent in 2023, the government also said. 

“The real gross domestic product grew at a year-on-year rate of 2.7 percent in the first quarter of this year. It is estimated that there will be a growth of about 2.5 to 3.5 percent for the whole year.” 

Chan also published a post on social media saying that although some people have had pessimistic views about Hong Kong from time to time since the handover, it doesn’t affect one bit of the fact that the city is prospering. 

“Hong Kong’s status as an international financial center is being reinforced and upgraded. The market capitalization of Hong Kong stocks exceeds HK$33 trillion, 10 times of that at the time of the return to the motherland in 1997.” 

Hong Kong’s stock market capitalization and size of asset under management are both equivalent to 10 to 11 times of Hong Kong's GDP, he added.