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Coronavirus pandemic
Hong KongHong Kong economy

Hong Kong financial chief predicts growth in mainland China will lift local economy in third quarter; six new Covid-19 cases confirmed

  • Returning momentum in mainland economy will have knock-on effect in financial hub, minister Paul Chan predicts
  • But any recovery will depend on how well Hong Kong can maintain its success in containing the pandemic, he says

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Hong Kong’s finance chief is expecting the city’s economy to improve in the third quarter. Photo: AFP
Gigi ChoyandPhila Siu
Mainland China’s return to growth will help the Hong Kong economy recover from its battering by the coronavirus, according to the city’s financial chief, who predicted a “significant improvement” to third-quarter performance and exports in September.
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But achieving that progress depended on how well Hong Kong contained the spread of Covid-19, a fight that had already strained public resources, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po said.

Chan’s optimism follows a week in which the daily number of new cases stayed below 20, with just six infections emerging on Sunday, all but one imported.

SCMP Graphic
SCMP Graphic
The mainland remains one of the few bright spots in a global economy ravaged by the health crisis. After it aggressively tackled the pandemic, gross domestic product grew 4.9 per cent in the third quarter compared with a year earlier, a recovery that followed a 6.8 per cent contraction in the first three months. Hong Kong now stood to benefit from that expansion, Chan predicted.
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“Hong Kong’s economy has contracted for four quarters in a row,” he wrote on his blog. “We have yet to come out of this recession, but the drop in the third quarter should show significant improvement compared with the first two quarters. With the mainland’s economy regaining momentum and local consumption gradually improving, the pressure on our economy can be alleviated if the pandemic continues to remain under control.”

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