(Reprinted from HKCER Letters, Vol.47, November 1997)

 

Hong Kong's Integration with Its Hinterland:
A Mixture of Curses and Blessings

Yun-Wing Sung

 

In Hong Kong's economic history, each new phase of economic development has been caused by a fundamental shift in the territory's relationship with its hinterland--that is, mainland China. The most recent of these shifts occurred in July 1997, when China resumed sovereignty over Hong Kong. This change in sovereignty will most likely herald another phase in Hong Kong's economic development.

Since the post-war era, Hong Kong's relationship with its hinterland has undergone three fundamental changes. The first of these occurred in 1950 with the outbreak of the Korean War and the beginning of the Cold War in East Asia. At this time, Hong Kong lost its hinterland and its entrepot trade. After the communist came to power, China reduced its import of consumer goods and also re-directed its trade towards communist countries. This state-to-state trade bypassed Hong Kong. China's imports from Hong Kong fell to negligible levels. The US ban on imports from China and the UN embargo on the export of strategic commodities to China aggravated the fall in entrepot trade. Both the Hong Kong and the Chinese governments sealed the border against free migration, and China was closed to Hong Kong investment.

Hong Kong became an export-oriented, industrialized city, with the United States being the number one market for goods manufactured in Hong Kong. Hong Kong grew as part of pax Americana instead of as part of China.

The second shift occurred in 1979 with the opening of China, at which time Hong Kong partially regained its hinterland. Since then, it has been easy to move capital from Hong Kong into the mainland, especially for the purpose of investing in manufacturing, but it has remained very difficult to move mainland labor into Hong Kong. As a result, Hong Kong's labor-intensive industries have largely relocated to Guangdong, and Hong Kong's investment in the mainland has transformed the economies of both the mainland and of Hong Kong itself. However, the economic integration that has been achieved has been quite shallow, as it has largely been restricted to the integration of the manufacturing sector. Integration of services has been slow, partly due to China's restrictions governing external investment in services and partly due to Hong Kong's barriers to migration.

The third shift occurred in July 1997 with the restoration of Hong Kong to China. This will, we hope, mark the beginning of Hong Kong's wholehearted re-integration with its hinterland. As Hong Kong is much more of a service hub than it is a manufacturing center (services and manufacturing accounted for 84 percent and 9 percent, respectively, of Hong Kong's 1995 GDP), it should gain much more from the integration of services than it has from the integration of manufacturing.

The hinterland supplies food, labor, markets, and business opportunities to the metropolis--i.e., Hong Kong. The hinterland is also, however, a reservoir of backwardness, poverty, population pressure, and illiteracy. Before 1997 Hong Kong was able to strictly limit the entry of mainland migrants into the territory. As a result, it has been able to avoid the massive immigration and unemployment typical to many third world cities. It has been able to reap most of the blessings that come from being in close contact with a large, low-income population while avoiding most of the curses generally associated with such a relationship. However, Hong Kong's most effective barriers against mainland migrants will necessarily erode after 1997, and Hong Kong will have to take the bad along with the good.

The first shift: loss of the hinterland and export-oriented industrialization

One peculiar feature of Hong Kong's export-oriented industrialization was that, for a long time, Hong Kong was for the most part cut off from its hinterland. There was still, however, some exchange between the two places. Hong Kong benefited from low-cost foodstuffs and potable water supplied by China. The border was sealed in 1949, but many refugees still made their way to Hong Kong. As Hong Kong's economic success was based on the export of labor-intensive manufactured goods, it was not in Hong Kong's interest to cut off the flow of refugees completely. The government regulated illegal migration through the so-called "touch base" policy, whereby refugees who evade capture and manage to establish contact with family or friends are allowed to stay in the territory, but those who are caught before doing so are repatriated.

Legal immigrants from China to Hong Kong were regulated by an exit quota that China established. According to the treaties that ceded Hong Kong to Britain, Chinese had the right to enter Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong government could not impose an immigration quota on them. However, China cooperated with Hong Kong by imposing an exit quota. Chinese authorities determine who would be chosen to fill the quota.

Due to the nature of its estrangement from the hinterland, Hong Kong was able to reap the blessings of a relationship with the mainland without bearing the brunt of the curses that might otherwise have gone along with it. Hong Kong continued to enjoy a steady supply of food provided by the hinterland. Refugees also manned Hong Kong's labor-intensive industries. Compared with other migrants from China, refugees adapted to industrial discipline much faster because they had their backs to the wall. They made much better industrial workers. Hong Kong was spared the many problems associated with rural migration and return migration--namely, unemployment, high labor turnover, sanitation problems, and contagious diseases.

The second shift: China's opening and shallow re-integration

Loosening social control in China after the death of Mao Tse-tung led to an influx of over half a million legal and illegal Chinese immigrants into Hong Kong from 1976 to 1980. In 1980 alone 200,000 illegal immigrants crossed the border into Hong Kong. As a result of the rapid rise in income level in Hong Kong and of the improvement of social services and social welfare, unskilled immigrants were regarded as a liability rather than an asset. Moreover, unlike the refugees of the 1950s, the illegal immigrants of the late 1970s were looking for better economic opportunities, not fleeing political problems. They attracted little public sympathy.

The Hong Kong government terminated the "touch base" policy in late 1980 and instituted a system of computerized identity cards, which residents are required to carry with them at all times. Illegal immigrants who are caught without an identity card are promptly repatriated to China. As a result of the crackdown on illegal immigrants, the labor market in Hong Kong became very tight starting in 1986. From 1987 to 1994 the annual unemployment rate in Hong Kong never rose above 2 percent.

The rapid wage increases in Hong Kong in the late 1980s meant that Hong Kong firms needed to relocate to a place where labor was cheaper. However, most manufacturing firms in Hong Kong are ill-equipped to operate across geographic and cultural barriers. The opening of China, with its geographic and cultural proximity, presented a golden opportunity to Hong Kong manufacturing firms, which began relocating to the mainland--and particularly to Guangdong province--in droves. Guangdong accounted for around 40 percent of Hong Kong's FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) in China and around 30 percent of all FDI in China.

Hong Kong's investment in China

Hong Kong's investment in China is considerable. The bulk of its stock of outward FDI is in China, accounting for close to 60 percent of inward FDI in China. Largely as a result of Hong Kong's investment in China, China has been the foremost recipient of FDI among developing economies since 1992, and Hong Kong has been the foremost source of FDI among developing economies since 1991 (Hong Kong is still classified as a developing economy by the World Bank and other international organizations, although the classification is inappropriate).

Since 1993 China has been the second largest recipient of FDI in the world after the United States, and Hong Kong has been the world's number four source of FDI after the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. It is ahead of Japan. In 1995 Hong Kong's FDI in China was US$20 billion, or nearly three times the total inward FDI of US$7 billion in Mexico, which was the world's number two recipient of FDI among developing countries. Hong Kong's 1995 FDI in Guangdong province alone amounted to US$8 billion, exceeding total inward FD1 in Mexico.

Not all of Hong Kong's FDI in China really originates in Hong Kong. Hong Kong's large share in China's investment conceals Hong Kong's important middleman role. According to China's statistics, Hong Kong's investment into China includes the investment of the subsidiaries of foreign companies incorporated in Hong Kong. Many multinational companies like to test the Chinese investment environment through investments of their Hong Kong subsidiaries because Hong Kong has the required expertise and is the foremost center for China's trade and investment. Chinese enterprises also invest in China via their Hong Kong subsidiaries to take advantage of the preferences given to foreign investors. This "round tripping" of Chinese capital in Hong Kong inflates both the amounts of Hong Kong investment in China and of China's investment in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, there is no reliable estimate of the amount of "round tripping" that takes place.

As Hong Kong is an international financial center and as there is a world capital market, it is not very meaningful to talk about the nationality of capital. Contrary to the predictions of Karl Marx, the proletariat of the world have not united, although the world's capitalists have. Whatever the true origin of Hong Kong capital, Hong Kong certainly plays a crucial mediation role in China-bound investment.

In the sixteen years following China's opening in 1979, Hong Kong's utilized foreign direct investment (FDI) in China amounted to nearly US$79 billion, which was 59 percent of cumulative FD1 in China. The FDI of other economies in China during this period was much lower. Taiwan was a distant second, with a share of 9.1 percent. The United States and Japan were in third and fourth places, with respective shares of 8.1 percent and 7.7 percent. Until recently, external investment in China has been mainly a Hong Kong phenomenon. The cumulative investments of the United States and Japan in China were no larger than their investments in Hong Kong were.

China's investment in Hong Kong

Among developing economies, the mainland was second only to Hong Kong as a source of FDI from 1992 to 1993, and it has been the number three source, after Hong Kong and Taiwan, since 1994. Hong Kong was the destination of 80 percent of the mainland's outward FDI in the 1990s.

During the Maoist era, although China's investment in Hong Kong were substantial, the Chinese investment strategy was conservative. China's companies confined themselves to handling, transporting, and financing China's exports to Hong Kong, and they also handled remittances and visitors. As a result of bureaucratic control from Beijing, they were ill-equipped to take advantage of local business opportunities, and they rarely did so.

Since 1979 Hong Kong has been the premiere entrepot of China. Chinese provincial, local, and ministerial enterprises swarmed to Hong Kong to establish contacts with the world market. Mainland investment in Hong Kong increased rapidly.

The Sino-British Declaration of 1984 hastened Chinese investment in Hong Kong because Hong Kong would be its future turf. Hong Kong capitalists could acquire political goodwill by investing in China or by helping Chinese companies invest in Hong Kong. To stabilize the Hong Kong economy, the Chinese government repeatedly asked the Bank of China in Hong Kong to bail out friendly Hong Kong magnates in financial crises. Chinese capital also acquired control of Hong Kong banks and well-known firms in rescue operations. There were no reliable statistics on the extent of external investment in Hong Kong until statistics from recent surveys conducted by the Hong Kong government were first released in May 1996. At the end of 1995 China was the second-largest external investor in Hong Kong. Its share of the stock of FDI was 20 percent (or US$13.9 billion). It was second to the United Kingdom (27 percent) but ahead of Japan (16 percent) and the United States (13 percent). However, in terms of the flow of FDI or the increase in stock from 1994 to 1995, China was clearly the foremost investor in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong's trade with China

With China's opening, Hong Kong regained its historic role as China's entrepot. From 1979 to 1996 China's trade via Hong Kong with third countries rose a hundredfold, from US$1.2 billion (4.2 percent of China's trade) to US$120 billion (41.3 percent of China's trade). Around 30 percent of this entrepot trade was traditional entrepot trade, in which the Hong Kong trader acts as a middleman. The rest (70 percent) was related to Hong Kong's outward processing activities in China, in which the mainland subsidiaries of Hong Kong firms process raw materials and semi-manufactured goods purchased by the Hong Kong parent in the world market, and the processed output is sold via the parent to the world market, generating entrepot trade. Both types of entrepot trade have become prominent since 1979.

The rapid increase in China-related traditional entrepot trade since 1979 was a result of the decentralization of China's system of foreign trade, which vastly increased the number of trading partners and raised the cost of searching for a suitable trade partner. Intermediation emerged to lower these search costs and was channeled to Hong Kong because of the efficiency of its traders.

The rapid growth of entrepot trade related to outward processing had to do with the relocation of Hong Kong manufacturing to China. By relocating labor-intensive processing to China, Hong Kong manufacturers have been able to concentrate on skill-intensive operations such as product design, production management, sourcing, order-taking, financing, and marketing. The expansion of exports from processing operations in Guangdong also increased the demand for Hong Kong's service industries, including entrepot trade, shipping, insurance, business services, and financial services. Both the Hong Kong manufacturing sector and the Hong Kong economy have grown increasingly service oriented; in short, Hong Kong has become the service hub of an industrialized Guangdong.

The trade flows generated by Hong Kong investment in Guangdong have been huge. In 1996 Hong Kong's re-export of goods made in Guangdong under outward processing were estimated to be nearly US$67.9 billion, which was 45 percent of China's exports or more than twice India's exports of US$32.8 billion. Hong Kong investment is the most important component of China's spectacular export drive.

Hong Kong's industrial investment in Guangdong transformed Hong Kong manufacturing and its entire economy. Hong Kong manufacturing firms reportedly employ up to 5,000,000 workers in Guangdong, while the manufacturing labor force in Hong Kong fell from a record of 905,000 in 1984 to 327,000 in 1996.

Along with its increasing entrepot trade, China's imports of Hong Kong goods also soared. Since 1993 China has surpassed the United States as the foremost market for Hong Kong goods, 70 percent of which have been semi-manufactured goods made in Hong Kong to be further processed in China for United States and European Union markets. If we net out trade in semi-manufactured goods between Hong Kong and China, the United States and the European Union are still the largest markets for Hong Kong products and also for the exports of the subsidiaries of Hong Kong firms in Guangdong.

Hong Kong and the mainland are one another's foremost trading partners largely because Hong Kong uses the mainland as its export platform to the United States and the European Union. Though the economies of Hong Kong and the mainland are tightly linked, it must be remembered that the Hong Kong-mainland nexus is not an inward-looking trade bloc, as the United States is its largest market and Japan is its largest supplier of capital goods and technology. An inward-looking trade bloc excluding Japan and the United States would be detrimental to the Hong Kong-mainland nexus.

Blessings of re-integration

The successful re-integration of Hong Kong with its hinterland brought prosperity to both Hong Kong and China, and this prosperity quickly dispelled the gloom that hung over the region following the Tiananmen Square incident of 1989. The net emigration of permanent Hong Kong residents reached a peak of 48,100 people in 1990 but declined to 38,900 and 24,100 people in 1991 and 1992, respectively.

Successful economic development in Guangdong has strengthened reforms in China. Deng Xiaoping toured Guangdong early in 1992 and designated Guangdong as the "dragon head" of China's economic reforms. Investors in Hong Kong responded immediately. Hong Kong's contracted FDI in China jumped from US$7 billion in 1991 to US$40 billion in 1992 and jumped again to US$74 billion in 1993. Hong Kong's net emigration of permanent Hong Kong residents also turned abruptly into a net immigration of 1,100 people in 1993 and increased to a net immigration of 63,900 people in 1996. The 1996 population of Hong Kong was 407,000 above the number projected by the Hong Kong government in 1992. The sudden influx of returning migrants was largely responsible for the increase.

Prospect of Hong Kong as a trading center and service hub

As long as the mainland respects Hong Kong's autonomy, the economic fundamentals are likely to work in Hong Kong's favor. China will further decentralize its trading system and will create greater opportunities of intermediation for Hong Kong. Moreover, there are significant economies of scale and economies of agglomeration in trading activity, and it is very difficult for other cities like Singapore or Shanghai to compete with Hong Kong because Hong Kong is the established center for China's trade. The existence of economies of scale in intermediation would enhance the demand for middlemen, as small firms would not be able to trade efficiently.

Traders tend to agglomerate in a city, suggesting that there are significant external economies involved. This implies that once a city acquires a comparative advantage in trade, the advantage feeds upon itself, and more trading firms will come to the city, making the city even more efficient in trade.

It is amazing that eighteen years after China's opening, Hong Kong's shares of China's trade and investment remain as high as they do. In 1996 Hong Kong still handled over 40 percent of China's trade in the form of re-exports and also accounted for 49 percent of the 1996 utilized FDI in China. This shows the importance of economies of scale and agglomeration in trading and service activities.

Though economies of scale and agglomeration characterize most economic activities, including agriculture, manufacturing, and services, agglomeration leads to rising land prices, which would stop the tendency towards agglomeration. As businesses agglomerate, agriculture is the first activity to move out because it is land-intensive. Manufacturing is the second activity to move, and the majority of Hong Kong manufacturing firms have by now relocated their land- and labor-intensive processes to China.

Trading, business services, and financial services will be the least affected by rising land prices and wages in Hong Kong because such activities are neither land-intensive nor labor-intensive. New York and London long ago lost their comparative advantages in manufacturing, but their positions in trading, business, and finance remain formidable.

Hong Kong's shares in China's trade and investment are so high that they are unlikely to rise further. They are rather likely to decline, as China is building many ports, and many foreign multinationals are investing in China. In the long run, China is likely to overcome its transportation bottlenecks and to acquire modern trading skills. While China may even clean up its bureaucracy, it will still rely on Hong Kong for trade, financial, and business services because of economies of scale and agglomeration.

The Chinese are establishing many trading companies in Hong Kong, showing that they recognize the territory's efficiency in trading. Some Hong Kong traders fear competition from Chinese trading companies in Hong Kong. However, the situation is not a zero-sum game because of economies of agglomeration; the arrival of Chinese trading companies further enhances the position of Hong Kong as a trading center.

Barriers to economic integration

Despite the enormous scale of trade and investment flows between Hong Kong and China, many institutional barriers to economic integration between Hong Kong and China will remain even after 1997. The three principle institutional barriers to economic integration considered in economic literature are: barriers to movement of goods, barriers to movements of labor and capital, and exchange rate risks. These three barriers usually exist in international transactions but are almost always absent in domestic transactions.

In this particular case, however, these three barriers exist between Hong Kong and the mainland. As China and Hong Kong are separate customs territories, tariffs are levied on Hong Kong exports to the mainland. In cooperation with Hong Kong, the mainland imposes strict controls on visits and migration to Hong Kong; consequently it is more difficult for mainland Chinese to go to Hong Kong than it is for them to travel anywhere else on earth, except Taiwan. Hong Kong-mainland transactions will involve exchange rate risks, as Hong Kong has its own currency.

It must be noted that Hong Kong and the mainland cannot form an institutional trade bloc. Hong Kong and the mainland cannot form a customs union because it requires a common external tariff. As the free port status of Hong Kong is guaranteed by the Basic Law and by international agreement, the only way for the mainland and Hong Kong to form a customs union is for the mainland to abolish all its tariffs. This is a ludicrous thought. No big country has ever done anything of the kind.

Forming a common market or an economic union of Hong Kong and the mainland would violate more sections of the Basic Law. A common market would imply that Hong Kong would have to give up regulating migration from China and would immediately face unmanageable population pressure. An economic union would imply that Hong Kong would have to give up its independent currency. It would then be impossible for Hong Kong to function as an international financial center, because the Chinese currency is far from freely convertible.

It should be noted that it would be impractical for Hong Kong and the mainland to form a Free Trade Area (FTA), which is the trade bloc with the lowest degree of formal economic integration. Forming an FTA would be beneficial to Hong Kong, as it would mean that Hong Kong goods would be exempt from Chinese tariffs. However, the mainland's exports to Hong Kong would not increase, because Hong Kong is already a free port. Moreover, the mainland would lose some tariff revenue. Such an FTA is unlikely to be a win-win proposition and is thus impractical.

Integration via geographic proximity and cultural affinity

Even after 1997 Hong Kong and the mainland will be much less institutionally integrated than are Greece and Ireland. Both of these countries are members of the European Union, which has complete freedom of movement of goods, labor, and capital between countries. Since China is not yet a member of the WTO, and since the Chinese currency is not freely convertible, Hong Kong is institutionally more closely integrated with most other economies than it is with China.

Although economic theory concentrates on tariffs, controls on migration, and exchange-rate integration, the effect of geographical and cultural distances may be even more important. Hong Kong is only a thirty-minute train ride from China. The importance of cultural affinity is quite evident. Hong Kong people's ancestral roots are in Guangdong, the primary site of Hong Kong's investment in China. Geographic and cultural proximities facilitate economic integration, as they lower the cost of international transactions. Empirically, it has been found that sharing a common linguistic tie is associated with a big (more than 250 percent) increase in the bilateral FDI flow. Such proximity also enables businesses to evade formal barriers to trade and investment. Tariffs can be avoided through smuggling, and there is rampant smuggling from Hong Kong to China. The movement of people from Hong Kong to China is relatively free, even though movement in the other direction is highly controlled. However, illegal immigrants from the mainland are quite common in Hong Kong, as the labor market in Hong Kong is extremely tight. Although the Chinese yuan is not convertible, Hong Kong currency circulates widely (and unofficially) in Guangdong, especially in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. The Hong Kong government estimates that 22 percent to 25 percent of the total supply of the Hong Kong currency (roughly HK$17 billion) circulates in China. An unofficial market for yuan also existed in Hong Kong for some time. The unofficial market became an open market in 1993, when China officially permitted visitors to bring 6,000 yuan out of or into China. Many Hong Kong shops now accept payment in yuan.

Uneven integration

The integration between Hong Kong and the mainland has been highly uneven because of the remnants of central economic planning in China and the many differences in the legal and economic systems of the two places. Integration has proceeded rapidly in export-oriented manufacturing but slowly in services. Between the mainland and Hong Kong, controls on movements of goods are relatively liberal, whereas controls on capital and foreign exchange are stricter, and controls on migration are the strictest. Integration of the commodity market between the mainland and Hong Kong has proceeded rapidly because of the relatively mild controls on the flow of goods. However, even in the case of the commodity market, one should distinguish between export-processing industries and import-competing industries. The outward processing operations of Hong Kong on the mainland have developed extremely rapidly because their products are exported, and they are not hampered by China's foreign exchange controls. The growth of external investment in China's import-competing industries has been slower because of China's foreign exchange controls.

The integration of services industries are similarly slow because most services cannot be exported and are sold in the domestic market. Moreover, services are performed on people and require people to people contacts. Hong Kong's controls on migration from the mainland has hampered the full integration of services.

The integration of the financial markets has been slow as well, as China's foreign exchange controls on the capital accounts are quite strict. The integration of the labor markets has been very slow because of controls on migration.

The unevenness of integration has not been undesirable from Hong Kong's standpoint, as Hong Kong has been able to avoid most of the curses that might have accompanied integration through its strict immigration controls.

The third shift: deep integration after the restoration of Hong Kong to China?

Even before 1997 China had started to lift some of its restrictions on foreign investment in the service sectors, although the liberalization has proceeded slowly. As services are performed on people, cultural and geographic proximities are even more important than they are in the case of goods production. Given Hong Kong's comparative advantage in services, the liberalization of services in China should bring tremendous benefits to Hong Kong.

Though Hong Kong remains a separate customs territory with its own currency, its restoration to China will facilitate the process of integration. With the Sino-British disputes out of the way, Hong Kong and the mainland will find it easier to coordinate infrastructural developments and economic policies. Policy coordination is especially important in the integration of services because services, e.g., banking, insurance, and telecommunications, are often highly regulated.

Presently, many firms in Hong Kong that have Chinese connections are well well positioned to take advantage of the liberalization of services in China. The Bank of China Group in Hong Kong has many branches in China. Just before the handover in June 1997, Cable and Wireless sold 5.5 percent of the shares of Hong Kong Telecom (the largest firm in Hong Kong in terms of employment and stock market capitalization) to China's Ministry of Post and Telecommunications. Mainland partners will eventually have controlling interest of Hong Kong Telecom, which is in a good position to take advantage of the vast opportunities in China's telecommunications market.

Although Hong Kong still has strict controls over migration from the mainland, such controls will erode in the long run. Largely as a result of immigration from the mainland, Hong Kong's population is expected to grow considerably over time. According to the 1997 population projection of the Hong Kong government, the population will grow at an average annual rate of 1.4 percent, increasing from 6.3 million in mid-1966 to 7.8 million in 2011. This is 1.3 million more people than a 1992 projection predicted.

The government projection is most likely an underestimate because it assumes that the number of immigrants from China will remain the same as it is under the current exit quota imposed by China (150 per day). Pressure to relax the quota will increase, as many Hong Kong residents have family members in the mainland. According to a government survey, there were 405,400 direct relatives (children or spouses) of Hong Kong residents living in China in 1991. Since 1991, 214,000 have already entered Hong Kong, but the number of people in China who are related to Hong Kong citizens is still large, as Hong Kong-mainland marriages are on the increase. Presently, spouses of Hong Kong residents have to wait up to ten years before they can migrate to Hong Kong.

According to the Basic Law, children born outside Hong Kong whose parents are Hong Kong residents are also Hong Kong residents, and they have a constitutional right to stay in Hong Kong. As of July 1997 Hong Kong residents had an estimated total of 66,000 children in the mainland. These children have the right to enter Hong Kong. The HKSAR government has passed a law to delay their immediate entry, and the law is being contested in court. Whatever the outcome, immigrants from the mainland will most likely exceed 150 per day by a substantial margin. To ease the pressure, Hong Kong may start to impose length-of-residency requirements on social services and social welfare.

As a result of the increased inflow of migrants from the hinterland, Hong Kong is fated to become more like a third world metropolis, where affluence coexists with substantial unemployment and poverty. The differences between the metropolis and its hinterland will only be resolved in the long run, when the mainland has also been developed. By then, the fifty years allotted to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region will have already run out. At that point, there may be no need for two systems in one country. The interesting question is whether the future system will be more like the one currently in place in the mainland or like the one now in place in Hong Kong.

Dr. Yun-Wing Sung is Professor and Chairman of Department of Economics, the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

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