HKSAR Govt Releases Business Expectations Survey

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, February 15, 2003

HKSAR Govt Releases Business Expectations Survey

The volume of business is expected to go up in the first quarter of 2003 in sectors of manufacturing, restaurants and hotels, transportation, banks, realestate and telecommunications in Hong Kong.

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The volume of business is expected to go up in the first quarter of 2003 in sectors of manufacturing, restaurants and hotels, transportation, banks, realestate and telecommunications in Hong Kong.

On the other hand, the volume of business in the construction sector and in the wholesale, retail and import-export trades is expected to go down, according to the results of a new Quarterly Business Tendency Survey released by the Census and Statistics Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) Friday.

The Quarterly Business Tendency Survey was conducted for the first time during mid-December 2002 to mid-January 2003, and is inplace of the former Half-yearly Business Prospects Survey.

This new survey gathers views on short-term business outlook from the senior management of about 400 prominent establishments in major economic sectors.

In the manufacturing sector, more respondents expect an increase in their volume of production, as compared to those expecting a decrease, in the first quarter of 2003 over the fourthquarter of 2002.

As to the expected change in employment, there are only slightly more respondents expecting an increase than those expecting a decline.

In regard to the expected change in prices, there are distinctly more respondents anticipating a decline in their selling prices than those expecting a price increase.

Meanwhile, more respondents in the construction sector expect a contraction in the volume of construction output and in the numberof persons engaged in the first quarter of 2003 as compared to thefourth quarter of 2002, than those expecting an increase.

For the wholesale, retail and import-export trades, there are considerably more respondents expecting a decline in their volume of sales and in their selling prices in the first quarter of 2003 as compared with the fourth quarter of 2002, than those expecting an increase.

A spokesman of the Census and Statistics Department of the HongKong SAR cautioned that, in a survey of this nature, the results should be interpreted with care, as it is difficult to establish precisely the extent to which respondents' perception of the future accords with the underlying trends.

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