Over the past six months, some new issues that had impacts on Hong Kong economy, have caught much public attention. In this December-1999 opinion survey, panel members were asked to evaluate the impact of four selected aspects on the Hong Kong's free market status. 204 senior business executives answered through a scale range from "Extremely Negative" (-3) to "Extremely Positive" (+3). Table 3 shows the detailed results. These four issues are:

1. SAR government's direct involvement in the Disneyland project and provision on infrastructure investment.
2. SAR government had started to sell off its shareholding through the Tracker Fund of Hong Kong.
3. The Sino-U.S. agreement on China's accession to the World Trade Organization.
4. SAR government proposes the "Land Departure Tax".

About 60% of the senior executives expressed a positive consideration on the direct involvement in the Disneyland project by the SAR government. 24% expected that the impact would be negative on Hong Kong's free market status. There were also 16% of them considered the impact would be "Just Right".

The survey results revealed that a majority of the senior business executives being surveyed has a good impression on the selling off of the shareholding by the SAR government through the Tracker Fund of Hong Kong. Approximately 84% of the respondents agreed that such action would be positive for Hong Kong's free market status. Only about 7% and 9% of them expected that the impact would be negative and "Just Right" respectively.

Moreover, most of the respondents welcomed the Sino-U.S. agreement on China's accession into the World Trade Organization. Almost 90% of them considered that the accession would have positive effect on the free market status. Only 4% of the respondents expected a negative effect while 6% of them predicted that the accession would be "Just Right".

For the "Land Departure Tax" proposal, approximately 54% of business executives being surveyed expressed that the proposal would adversely affect the status of market freedom. Nevertheless, about 27% of them disagreed with such an opinion, and 19% considered that the impact would be "Just Right".