港府勿忘精打细算

Stephen Vines

(Editor's Note: Mr. Vines is a Hong Kong-based writer.)

What happens when a government has far more money in the bank than it needs? Hong Kong's financial secretary, who is announcing the territory's budget tomorrow, will soon tell us. Here's a hint: The cash hoard isn't likely to be spent wisely.

Hong Kong literally has an embarrassment of riches available to spend. Unlike its counterparts in practically every other part of the globe, the territory's government is at pains to disguise how much money it has ferreted away in its coffers. The headline surplus is expected to exceed HK$100 billion ($12.8 billion), to produce fiscal reserves totaling HK$485 billion, according to accountants at Ernst & Young.

The true surplus is even higher. To keep the headline number down, the government has changed the way it reports investment returns on the territory's HK$1.4 trillion Exchange Fund, established to protect the local currency and ensure stability in the banking system. It now publicly announces a yield based on the average annual return for the previous six years. That will be 7% this year. But the true investment gain for 2007 should be closer to 12%. Combining the cash in the Exchange Fund and the other fiscal reserves, the government now holds a sum equivalent to 100 months of public expenditure. That's far above any level considered prudent for a state protecting itself against fiscal uncertainty.

So much money provides bureaucrats with an irresistible temptation to spend on pet schemes. If past experience is any guide, we're in for some big handouts tomorrow. Maybe the government will come clean on how much it intends to spend on creating a new cruise-ship terminal on Hong Kong island. In other parts of the world where there's demand for this kind of infrastructure, the private sector steps in and builds it, as it did when creating Hong Kong's world famous container terminals.

Also look for even more funding for the local tourism board, whose current government stipend stands at HK$683 million. Besides being enmeshed in a scandal over lavish and unauthorized payments to executives, the board seems to spend a great deal of its budget on parades in Hong Kong and in setting up offices in countries that send very few tourists to the city -- while spending practically nothing in mainland China, by far the territory's biggest source of visitors.

Such high spending is par for the course here. The government is also poised to create a HK$49 billion 'cultural hub' on the Western side of Hong Kong's famous harbor, fulfilling a bureaucratic fantasy of locating major cultural venues in a single place. Over HK$5.2 billion is expected to be earmarked for building a palatial office complex to house the bureaucrats themselves. The government has already spent HK$27.7 billion on the world's only nationalized Disneyland. And the government owns and runs Hong Kong's other major theme park, Ocean Park.

Just in time to catch the bursting of the dot-com bubble the government decided to invest in projects catering to the fading boom. One of them, the Cyberport complex, built on the last remaining prime coastal site on Hong Kong island, is currently occupied by practically no one performing high-tech R&D, although it houses plenty of sales and marketing teams from electronics companies. The other project, a so-called Science Park costing some HK$12 billion, must constantly bend its supposedly strict research criteria rules to fill the space. If this is how the government picks winning sectors, cruise operators should be nervous about that new terminal.

A few specific industries may benefit, too. In last year's budget there was a HK$300 million handout to the film industry. In previous budgets a modest HK$5 million was thrown at the logistics industry, and HK$250 million at something called a 'Design Smart Project' supposedly to make Hong Kong a leading design center.

The easiest way to give the public back its money is to cut taxes, and at least there's good news on this front. Financial Secretary John Tsang will announce a cut in salaries tax to 15% from 16%, maintaining Hong Kong's commendable low direct taxation policy. But tax-cutting doesn't come instinctively. Last year Mr. Tsang's predecessor toyed with a plan for a new goods-and-services tax amid dire warnings of a shortage of funds; this idea has been abandoned but may come back. This year corporate taxes may well remain at 16.5%, despite aggressive rate cutting in Hong Kong's biggest competitor, Singapore.

Few quibble over the notion that taxation needs to be kept low, but even those who are uneasy about the notion of a welfare state concede that a less parsimonious attitude could be taken toward the elderly poor, the ill-educated immigrants who helped make Hong Kong such a success but got left far behind as the economy boomed. No palaces are being planned for them.

Hong Kong officials seem to think their genius is responsible for the vast sums of money sloshing around in the treasury. But, like everywhere else in the world, this cash comes not from the bureaucrats but from the people who work and run businesses. It would be nice if Mr. Tsang's budget speech tomorrow recognized this fact. Don't hold your breath.

如果一个政府有太多的财政收入可以开支，那会发生什么情况呢？香港财政司司长周三公布香港财政预算时会给出一种答案。不过，在我看来，港府不大可能对这些钱精打细算。

香港政府手头可支配的钱多得有点让他们不知所措。它总是竭力掩盖自己富足的财政状况，这与世界其他地方政府的做法截然不同。据安永会计师事务所(Ernst & Young)预计，香港财政盈余将超过1,000亿港元（约合128亿美元），财政储备因此将达到4,850亿港元。

实际盈余甚至更高。为让盈余数字看上去更低，港府调整了外汇基金投资收益的计入方式。这只目前为1.4万亿港元的基金是专门用来保护港元及确保香港银行系统的稳定的。现在政府只公布之前6年的平均年收益。今年公布的数字是7%。但这部分投资2007年的实际投资收益率应在接近12%的水平。外汇基金中的现金储备再加上其他财政储备，目前港府手头握有的资金相当于100个月的公共支出额，远远高于一个政府为保护经济免受财政不确定性影响所需的合理资金水平。

如此多的资金让港府机构忍不住将资金用于一些无关痛痒的项目上。根据以往的情况推断，估计我们明天会看到港府慷慨出手的景象。或许它会公布将投资多少资金在港岛新建游轮码头。在世界其他地方，此类基础设施往往都是由私营企业出资兴建的，全球闻名的香港集装箱码头当年也是这样的。

此外，预计香港政府还将为旅游发展局(Hong Kong Tourism Board)慷慨解囊，目前政府对它的补贴为6.83亿港元。香港旅游发展局曾因未经许可向高层管理人员支付大量津贴而深陷丑闻，除此之外，它还在香港游行活动上大肆挥霍，并且将大量资金用于在一些国家（这些国家根本没有几个游客前往香港）设立办事处，而对身为香港最大游客来源地的中国大陆几乎是一毛不拔。

这样的高支出在香港很平常。港府还准备斥资490亿港元在维多利亚港西侧兴建一个“文化中心”，以实现一些官员希望把所有主要文化场所集中起来的梦想。 预计将有超过52亿港元的资金用于兴建一座富丽堂皇的政府办公楼。另外，港府已在迪斯尼乐园(Disneyland)投入277亿港元，这也是全球唯一一个政府投资的迪斯尼。港府还是另一家大型主题公园海洋公园(Ocean Park)的业主和经营方。

此前，就在网络泡沫破灭之际，香港政府却决定投资兴建多个互联网项目。建造在香港仅存的黄金海岸地带的数码港(Cyberport)就是其中之一，而目前这里几乎没有一家高科技研发机构，大多都是电子产品公司的销售和营销部门。另一个此类项目是所谓的科学园(Science Park)，耗资大约120亿港元，为吸引企业入驻，这里不得不一再降低对企业的技术要求。如果以上这些能反映香港政府在挑选成功行业方面的水平，那么，游轮运营商该为新码头捏把汗了。

不过，某些特定行业可能会从政府支出中受益。去年，电影行业得到了3亿港元的政府拨款。在过去几年的政府预算中，曾有5亿港元流向物流行业，政府还投资2.5亿港元成立了Design Smart Project，旨在把香港打造成全球顶尖设计中心。

其实，把财政盈余还之于民最简单的方法就是减税。还好，至少在这个方面有一些好消息。香港财政司司长曾俊华(John Tsang)将宣布，把薪俸税从16%下调至15%，从而使令人称道的香港低税收政策得以维持。但是减税措施的出台并不是一帆风顺的。去年，因担心财政资金出现缺口，曾俊华的前任曾草率地提出新开征商品和服务税。虽然这个计划最终被放弃，但是它可能会卷土重来。今年的公司税率可能还会维持在16.5%，而香港最大的竞争对手新加坡正在大幅降低税率。

没有人对实行低税收政策的必要性有异议，但是即使是那些不赞同建设福利型社会的人士也承认，香港政府应该对穷困的老年人以及未受过教育的移民持更加慷慨的态度，因为正是这些人的参与和努力香港才有今天的成功，但他们也是被经济蓬勃发展的香港所遗忘的一群人。没有人为他们的未来着想。

香港官员似乎认为以他们的才智能为香港的大量财政收入作出恰当安排。但是，和全球其他地方一样，这些资金不是出自官员、而是辛勤工作和经商的香港民众。如果曾俊华在周三的预算报告中能够充分认识到这一点是再好不过了。不过，别期望太高。