In August last year, speculators launched a severe attack on our currency, stock and futures markets. I am happy to say that we beat them off. It was for us, a matter of survival to maintain the integrity of our linked exchange rate to the US Dollar under our currency board system. The fallout has deeply affected us in Hong Kong. Wages have been frozen or reduced.
Rents are down by about the same amount, or even more.
And, five consecutive quarters of negative GDP is a situation with which we have never had to deal with before. But in the first five months of the year, there have been some promising signs. The property market has stabilized and there has been healthy buyer interest in competitively priced new units coming onto the market. This has been helped by a lowering of interest rates, and an easing of the credit crunch. The stock market has been more active, and rather more liquid than it was in 1998.