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The purpose of this paper is to examine Hong Kong's future economic diversification prospects to become a high value‐added knowledge‐based economy.

This paper is a view of the knowledge‐based economic development of Hong Kong and its potential future prospects since its re‐unification with China. It is important to have a good understanding of the past before trying to predict the future.

The key message is that Hong Kong now needs a “horizontal” support structure, a good understanding of how things work in a globalized knowledge economy, continuation of the “free market” structure and a lightweight facilitation system that supports all high‐value added economic activities in Hong Kong.

The papers provides an original viewpoint on the potential for Hong Kong's knowledge‐based economic development, in line with the rise of China as a global economic power.

The recent handing over of Hong Kong to China was an important landmark in British history. One might question, however, whether Hong Kong is still going to be of great significance to Britain and Europe in future years and whether future business and trade will remain important. The key to the question is very much now linked to Europe. Britain’s foreign and even domestic policies are increasingly linked to our continental European partners; at the same time Europe is beginning to see Hong Kong as one of the increasingly important East Asian economies, and European businesses are starting to pay more attention to focusing on new opportunities in rapidly expanding South‐East Asian markets and indeed China. Hong Kong now with its attachments to China will be focusing more on Europe as a whole and trying to gain access to the single European market for enhanced prosperity. The recent inclusion of China in the GATT talks and the collapse of communism have made way for increased opportunity for business in the global economy. This article questions the future importance of Hong Kong for Britain and Europe and assesses whether trade links and business opportunities are likely to be greater in the future for Hong Kong and Europe. It puts specific emphasis on the more recent change in role for Hong Kong and Europe.

Introduction Hong Kong has reached a turning point in its history during the past two years. The issue which dominated the city and caught the limelight of the world was Hong Kong's political future after 1997. The question of what will happen in less than 15 years is now the subject of the Sino‐British negotiations in Beijing.

This paper reports on a study about applying regression techniques to identify the determinants and functional forms of tourism hotel expenditure in Hong Kong. Annual time series data from 1983 to 1997 of average room rate, the number of visitor arrivals, the service price index, and hotel accommodation rates were hypothesised to affect tourism hotel expenditure. Seven exogenous variables were selected for regression model development in both linear and log‐linear forms. In view of the potential problems of multicollinearity between the independent variables, and therefore the associated instability of the regression coefficients, stepwise regression analyses were employed to improve the initial model. Final empirical results showed that the hotel expenditure in Hong Kong could be explained by four of the seven exogenous variables. A log‐linear form of the regression model appeared to slightly outperform the linear form.

At the stroke of midnight on 30th June, 1997 Hong Kong was returned to the People's Republic of China. China takes justifiable pride in what has to date been a smooth transition, but the government in Beijing is now confronted by a demanding reality, the need to make detailed arrangements regulating the legal ties between the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) and the sovereign power. Not the least of the problems concern the degree and means by which mutual legal assistance in criminal matters will be made available. The puzzle for the People's Republic is that Hong Kong's dependent status begs a high degree of mutual cooperation with China, but the procedural safeguards that exist to govern Hong Kong's cooperation with third jurisdictions may not easily be used as a model: the safeguards built into the current legislation would operate to exclude the sovereign power! On the other hand, if future cooperation between Hong Kong and China is to take place without safeguards local and international confidence may suffer.

The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) Strategy is an important component of the “Belt and Road Initiative” of China. The purpose of this Project is to develop the GBA into the most open, market-oriented and innovative pole of economic growth in China. The GBA Project provides Hong Kong with a rare opportunity to diversify its industrial structure and to move into a new and higher stage of economic development.

Being an integral part of the GBA, Hong Kong is expected and supported by the Central Government to develop into a hub of the Area, and, leveraging on Hong Kong’s status as an international metropolis, to connect the Area as a whole with the world.

China’s Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Project is a major national development strategy and is a major part of the Belt and Road Initiative. Hong Kong is going to play an important role in the Project and will benefit from it enormously in the future in terms of economic growth and the upgrading of its industrial structure. However, in order to take full advantage of participation in the Project, the way Hong Kong is governed, particularly the government's role in economic development, has to be modified significantly.

In order to take advantage of the Project, the Hong Kong SAR Government has to play a bigger and more proactive role in Hong Kong’s socioeconomic development and to strengthen its capacity to mobilize societal participation in the Project.

Hong Kong is considered to be an aging population because of the ultralow fertility rates and long life expectancy of its population. A promising solution to remedy this age imbalance is to recruit young people from outside Hong Kong. The inflow of Type II babies (i.e. babies born of Mainland Chinese women whose spouses are not Hong Kong citizens) has created an abundance of them within the young population. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

These controversies have been evaluated being mindful of the operation of a free economy in Hong Kong and the relevance of upholding the rule of law (Wong, 2012).

Wong’s (2012) recommendations to endow the Hong Kong Government with the authority to approve applications from a one-way permit system and to separate the right of residency of Type II babies from their entitlement to welfare services have also been summarized.

The inflow of Type II babies, however, has also generated public controversy concerning the intensifying competition for both public and private hospital services between Hong Kong residents and Mainlanders. This controversy has given rise to some questioning of whether a reinterpretation of the law is warranted to deny residency to Type II babies whose parents are not Hong Kong residents (Wong, 2012).

Assesses the relationship between Hong Kong property company and commercial property market performance over 1984‐94. Finds that property companies provide a useful source of transaction‐based information about changing property market fundamentals. The unique property market characteristics in Hong Kong mean that information is impounded into direct property series quickly, within one quarter of being impounded into indirect property company stock prices. Finds a common “pure” property element that influences both property company and property market returns. This results in investors capturing some portion of Hong Kong property market returns by investing in property companies, as well as achieving liquidity and portfolio diversification.

To make comparisons between ethnic Chinese in different countries, the work‐related values of middle managers from Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand were compared. Hong Kong and Singapore are characterized by a large Chinese majority and a dominant Chinese culture; whereas, in Thailand, the Chinese comprise a small minority, well integrated into Thai society. Therefore, the study hypothesized that similarities between the work values in Hong Kong and Singapore would be greater than between Hong Kong and Thailand or Singapore and Thailand. The findings, however, showed that there were twice as many significant differences in work values between Hong Kong and Singapore. Generally, however, Chinese work values were found to be quite consistent across the three societies.