The doomsayers have been proven wrong, so stop scaring ourselves

There has been no dearth of talk about Hong Kong's "demise" although all of them seem premature.mini storage The latest dire prognosis is that the city's port is on the skids.This is nothing new. The importance of Hong Kong as an entrepot servicing the Pearl River Delta hinterland has been on the decline since the proliferation of cargo handling facilities in Shenzhen and other port cities in Guangdong province.Further north — Shanghai's Pilot Free Trade Zone, comprising, among other things, the Yangshan deep water port off the Yangtze River mouth — is seen as posing a major threat to the HKSAR as well, although it's clear that Shanghai serves an entirely different geographical region. That, apparently, hasn't helped in lessening Hong Kong's paranoia.We have previously heard prominent economists and concerned citizens stoking fears that Hong Kong is losing its position as an international financial center to Shanghai, which has never spared any effort to trumpet its ambition to be one. But, Shanghai has remained, at best, a domestic financial center, hosting a moribund stock market and an array of inconsequential exchanges trading in gold and other commodities.Change is nothing new to Hong Kong with one of the world's most open economies that is subject to regional and global influences beyond its control. Hong Kong had faced many crises before, some of which, like the loss of entrepot trade in the 1950s, were serious enough to threaten its very existence.What's more, Hong Kong is not new to competition. As a low-cost manufacturing base in the 1960s to 1970s, Hong Kong must contend with such competitors as South Korea and Taiwan, which enjoyed the advantage of a much more plentiful supply of labor and land, in its tr儲存nsformation to a financial center,In the transformation to a financial center, many doubters and cynics took great delight in pitching Hong Kong against Singapore, portraying the two as engaging in a "duel of death." Of course, this is mostly untrue as the two centers, serving the needs of clients in different regions, have thrived on developing their own particular areas of expertise.Many global shippers and shipping companies reckon Hong Kong that remains the port of choice in the region not only because of its efficiency but, more important, Hong Kong is an established free port. It has no need to rewrite the law to create a confined free trade zone to accommodate offshore trade.To be sure, Hong Kong will lose part of the re-export trade in which goods manufactured in the Pearl River Delta region are sent to Hong Kong for shipment to overseas markets. Such a loss shouldn't be of too great a drag on the economy considering the minimal value added.There are always doubters and neurotics prophesying doom. But Hong Kong people should bear in mind that their city will prevail because it enjoys a distinct advantage over its real or imagined competitors. That advantage is a free market environment nurtured and preserved by the rule of law and a government that is disciplined in the economic policy of minimal intervention.Of course, there are areas that Hong Kong people would want their government to take a more active role in, such as building more affordable housing and promoting high value-added industries. Other than that, they can count on the private sector to sort out most of the problems as it had done so many times in the past.The author is a senior editor with China Daily. jamesleung@chinadaily.com.cn迷你倉