Hong Kong's Free-Market Economy Needs More Freedom: The Ticker
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Hong Kong is an economic paradox with few peers.It's routinely ranked the world's best place to do business by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, which publish the annual Index of Economic Freedom. That's because of Hong Kong's free entry of foreign capital, first-world legal system, low taxes and duty-free port.
Eyed from another angle, Hong Kong should worry the libertarians out there: Its leader is picked by Beijing and a handful of oligarchs tower over the economy. It also has the only state-backed Disneyland, and it uses a pegged currency.
If Hong Kong were as free as many believe, inflation might not be surging 7.9 percent, the fastest pace since 1995. The peg to the U.S. dollar is fueling bubbles in the city's economy. Hong Kong's dollar has weakened 7 percent against the Chinese yuan in the past two years, driving inflation and a surge in property prices. Tidal waves of mainland cash are pouring in to profit from the currency mismatch.
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