If significant resources were devoted to this approach, they would have to come from the taxpayer's pocket, and the consequence could be an end to the low-tax environment in which small business has thrived ("Hong Kong's Economy"). The purpose of this paper therefore, is to add a dose of realism to the presented in the Hong Kong article. To be blunt, Hong Kong does not need high-technology manufacturing, and if it did, the territory's economic system would be unable to implement such a radical change of direction. According to the another Hong Kong Standard article on May,11 ("Hong Kong's way") the economists who argue for the hi-tech manufacturing route to

Hong Kong firms are supremely efficient at finding buyers, sourcing components, and assembling and changing products and/or markets rapidly. However, these same characteristics militate against innovation ("Hong Kong's Economy"). The successful development of technology new to the world requires large amounts of "patient money" invested in specialized resources. To ensure successful development of technology, production operations need to extend far beyond assembly; they need close proximity to the most sophisticated customers, and they need the sharing of commercially sensitive information with technical experts from outside the family circle and highly skilled workers who have the freedom to experiment on the company's time. All of these characteristics are inconsistent with the dominant logic of Hong Kong business (Enright, Dodwell, and Scott 34-36). Finally, Hong Kong lacks the large organizations with enormously deep pockets who provide the financial support for smaller, hi-tech firms in the US. We have no Department of Defense, prepared to spend billions of dollars on R&D contracts, or mega-corporations prepared to sink similar amounts into the long-term financing of speculative projects in hi-tech start-ups. Creating another Silicon Valley needs that kind of resourcing (Farh, Leung, and Tse 60). It is not simply a matter of having a few bright scientists with a business idea. Hong Kong doesn't have it, and we don't need it. It would be reasonable to improve local capital market arrangements so that venture capitalists who wanted to take a big risk with their shareholders' money could sink it into fledging hi-tech firms. I don't think there would be many takers, but I might be wrong, and it wouldn't do any harm.

Consumers will buy goods if they offer a good balance between cost and quality. The markets which want much higher quality and are able to pay much higher prices are in the richer and older industrialized countries. They are growing slowly, and their well-educated work forces are much better equipped to meet the requirement for innovative products closely geared to local consumers' tastes than China's migrant laborers. The markets which are growing most rapidly world-wide are the developing countries and transitioned economies whose hundreds of millions of people would like nothing better than a decent pair of jeans, a cheap but reasonable watch, and access to a low-tech fax machine. These are precisely what Hong Kong firms are now making in China. They need improvements in their operations management skills so they can effectively handle the larger factories needed to gain scale economies. They need improvements in their marketing skills in order to develop their product designs, diversify their markets and develop a degree of brand name recognition which will allow them to capture a larger share of the product's final price. They do not need a radical change in direction, hi-tech wizardly or new-to -the -world innovations ("Hong Kong's Economic Future").

What would be seriously damaging to Hong Kong's economic health would be an attempt by government to force hi-tech manufacturing on the city through heavy public spending, which would have to be financed from taxation.

In the case of Hong Kong, domestic manufacturing has lost its competitiveness but the economy, as a whole, has not. The closure of the local manufacturing sector has been a boon, not a disaster. As other cheap labor economies in the region grow, they may become a more suitable location for some manufacturing activities, forcing a further shift in the pattern of production and the closure of some activities which currently take place in Hong Kong and its hinterland (Enright, Dodwell, and Scott 24-26). However, in the process, these other countries will earn higher incomes, pay higher wages, and become more im

Some common words found in the essay are:
Hong Kong, Hong Kong's, Kong's Economy, Combinations Consumers, hong kong, At-Risk Pay, Sources Advantage, Leung Wu, Kong's Performance, Hong Kong-made, hong kong's, Department Defense, hong kong firms, kong firms, manufacturing firms, kong's sources advantage, kong's manufacturing, sources advantage, hi-tech manufacturing, hong kong's sources, kong's economy, kong's sources, hong kong's manufacturing, kong's manufacturing firms, advantage hong,
Approximate Word count = 2587
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)