As part of the regular monthly tracking, Hong Kong Policy Research Institute Ltd. (HKPRI) has conducted a survey on the economic confidence indices of Hong Kong on 11-12 September 2000. Besides the standard questions, HKPRI also asked the respondents which priority issue that should be addressed by the Chief Executive in his Policy Address in the coming October. Comparing with the index figures of August 2000, the results are summarized as follows: (Please refer to Table 1)

1. China factors indicated somewhat improvements in September. 'Economic Prospect of Mainland China' (111.5 points) and 'China-Hong Kong Economic Relations' (115.2 points) increased by 4.8% and 3.8% respectively when compared with those figures in August. This reflected that the respondents were positive in these aspects of economic confidence. However, both of the increases were insignificant as indicated by statistical tests.

2. As compared with the index figures of August 2000, the indices on 'Improvement on Unemployment' and 'Property Market' surged by 12.7% and 9.0% respectively. Both changes showed significant differences by statistical tests. It seemed that the respondents' confidence in 'Improvement on Unemployment' started to improve, but further observation is necessary to confirm the trend. The increase in confidence in the 'Property Market' showed the instability of the respondents' views on this aspect (11.6% decrease was recorded in August), and it implied that the respondents were not so certain about the short term trend of the property market.

   Besides the above two indices, 'Economic Prospect of Hong Kong' also increased slightly by 1.8%. Only the 'Stock Market' index recorded a 3.0% decrease when compared with the figure of last month. However, the changes were insignificant as indicated by statistical tests.

3. The three indices in regard of the household economic situation showed a slight decline, which included 'Major Consumption Decision' (-3.9%), 'Maintenance of Livelihood' (-1.9%), and 'Family Financial Well-Being' (-0.2%). However, all of them were statistically insignificant.

4. When compared with the figures of August, both 'Change of Quality of Life' (2.6%) and 'Satisfaction with Quality of Life' (0.5%) did not have much change and none of them was indicated as having significant difference by statistical tests.

5. Concerning the priority issue that should be addressed by the Chief Executive in his Policy Address in the coming October (Please refer to Table 2), half of the respondents (50.1%) indicated that 'Unemployment problem' was the priority issue, followed by 'Housing problem' (15.1%), and 'Education problem' (10.4%). (In the survey of August, the proportion of the respondents for 'Unemployment problem', 'Housing problem', and 'Education problem' were 48.5%, 14.1%, and 14.4% respectively.)

The Economic Confidence Indices were conducted by telephone surveys. The respondents were the public of 18-64 years old. The distribution of sampled age groups is consistent with the age group distribution of the Hong Kong population. There were 790 completed interviews in the Economic Confidence Index survey in September 2000, and the response rate was about 84%.

Table 1
Comparison of Economic Confidence Indices Between September and August 2000

	Confidence Index (August 2000)	Confidence Index (September 2000)	% Change	Significant Changes indicated by statistical test
Major Consumption Decision	58.6	56.3	-3.9%	-
Family Financial Well-Being	77.4	77.2	-0.2%	-
Maintenance of Livelihood	64.9	63.7	-1.9%	-
Improvement on Unemployment	76.5	86.2	12.7%
Economic Prospect of Hong Kong	78.6	80.0	1.8%
Economic Prospect of Mainland China	106.4	111.5	4.8%	-
China-Hong Kong Economic Relations	110.9	115.2	3.8%	-
Stock Market	91.9	89.1	-3.0%	-
Property Market	93.5	101.9	9.0%
Satisfaction with Quality of Life	87.3	87.7	0.5%	-
Change of Quality of Life	87.2	89.5	2.6%	-

Contact Person: Mr. Ray Chan, Survey Research Manager, Tel.: 2686 1592