Capital: Victoria

Population: 6,847,125 (July 1999 est.)

Age structure:
0-14 years: 18% (male 644,982; female 598,188)
15-64 years: 71% (male 2,397,277; female 2,490,745)
65 years and over: 11% (male 323,949; female 391,984) (1999 est.)

Economy—overview: Hong Kong has a bustling free market economy highly dependent on international trade. Natural resources are limited, and food and raw materials must be imported. Indeed, imports and exports, including reexports, each exceed GDP in dollar value. Even before Hong Kong reverted to Chinese administration on 1 July 1997 it had extensive trade and investment ties with China. Real GDP growth averaged a remarkable 8% in 1987-88 and a still strong 5% in 1989-97. The widespread Asian economic difficulties in 1998 hit this trade-dependent economy quite hard, with GDP down 5%.

GDP: purchasing power parity—$168.1 billion (1998 est.)

GDP—real growth rate: -5% (1998 est.)

GDP—per capita: purchasing power parity—$25,100 (1998 est.)

Inflation rate (consumer prices): 2.9% (1998 est.)

Industrial production growth rate: -3.7% (1998)

Telephones: 4.47 million (1998)

Telephone system: modern facilities provide excellent domestic and international services
domestic: microwave radio relay links and extensive fiber-optic network
international: satellite earth stations—3 Intelsat (1 Pacific Ocean and 2 Indian Ocean); coaxial cable to Guangzhou, China; access to 5 international submarine cables providing connections to ASEAN member nations, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, Middle East, and Western Europe

Radio broadcast stations: AM 6, FM 6, shortwave 0

Radios: 3 million (1992 est.)

Television broadcast stations: 4 (in addition, there are two repeaters) (1997)