Hong Kong retains the highest rating for economic freedom with a score of 8.94 out of 10, followed by Singapore and New Zealand. The United States ties for eighth with Australia.
Speaking at the "Celebrating the Miracle of Hong Kong" gala dinner in Hong Kong organized by the Fraser Institute, Chief Executive Donald Tsang welcomed the report's findings, saying that the Fraser Institute and Hong Kong shared an "unswerving commitment to free trade and open markets, and the elimination of barriers to trade and investment."
Mr. Tsang said that Hong Kong valued the recognition and pledged to "continue to make every effort to 'walk the walk' of economic freedom in the years ahead."
The report uses 42 different measures to construct a summary index and to measure the degree of economic freedom in five broad areas: size of government; legal structure and security of property rights; access to sound money; freedom to trade internationally; and regulation of credit, labor and business.
The first Economic Freedom of the World Report, published in 1996, was the result of a decade of research by a team which included several Nobel Laureates, such as Milton Friedman, and over sixty leading scholars in a broad range of fields, from economics to political science, and from law to philosophy.
