ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Thursday, August 1, 1996               TAG: 9608010002
SECTION: EDITORIAL                PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO 

INVESTMENT BEHIND A CITY-STATE'S SUCCESS

GET GOVERNMENT off the backs of businessmen, it is often suggested, and prosperity will follow. Just look at places like Hong Kong, where an impressively free economy is also an amazingly dynamic economy.

Well, urban-affairs columnist Neal Peirce recently looked at the Hong Kong success story. He came away with observations worth noting by people, including in Western Virginia, who are looking for keys to a stronger economy.

Sure enough, Peirce concluded in his syndicated column, the Heritage Foundation with good reason ranks Hong Kong's economy the freest in the world - with its minimal business regulation, a 15 percent personal flat-rate income tax, and low social welfare spending.

But as British rule of the territory is about to give way, a year from now, to Chinese rule, another reason for Hong Kong's economic success shouldn't be overlooked. In a word, says Peirce, it's "investment." Not just private investment, but public investment.

Working in many cases with private partners, Hong Kong's government is even now investing some $21 billion in a variety of projects, from a new international airport on a man-made island to a new high-speed rail line, from a fully digitized communications system to new towns, roads and port facilities.

After a recent visit to Hong Kong by a delegation of Seattle government and business leaders, reports Peirce, the Americans came away with the impression that Hong Kong leaders "see every topic from tourism and conventions to aviation to housing to the port as integral parts of positioning the territory to prosper in international commerce."

Never mind who's the lead player in various shifting, ad hoc partnerships of government, business and investors: If something needs doing, it gets done.

Peirce quotes the head of the Seattle Trade Alliance, who identified a recurring theme from his worldwide travels. "People of successful regions are willing to make major investments - in infrastructure, in their future work force. They see, as we don't yet, that the economic game's now global, and that if their governments and businesses don't work collaboratively, their city-states will be losers."

Anybody see any relevance to much smaller regions, such as ours?

LENGTH: Short :   48 lines