The economy of Hong Kong is expected to grow 6.5 percent for
2006, mainly due to strong consumption and investment, the Bank of
China (Hong Kong) Ltd. said Saturday.
"Given the decent 6.6 percent growth in the first half and the
continuing momentum in consumption and investment, the full year
growth reaching the original forecast of 6.5 is still quite
probable," said the bank in its latest Monthly Economic Review.
Hong Kong's economy grew by 5.2 percent in the second quarter of
the year, the slowest pace in two and a half years and
significantly lower than the market consensus of 6.4 percent.
However, the bank pointed to the fact that the 5.2 percent real
growth was still higher than the 10-year trend growth of 3.9
percent. And the average growth in the first half of the year still
amounted to a decent 6.6 percent.
The review attributed the slowdown in growth in the second
quarter mainly to four factors, including contracting government
consumption expenditure, gross domestic fixed capital formation
slowdown, growth of goods export slowdown and rising service
imports.
"With the normalization of the external demands in the second
half, the external growth momentum should renew and Hong Kong
should see more balanced growth both internally and externally,"
said the bank.
(Xinhua News Agency September 3, 2006)