HK's white collar workers have a dim view of 2016

HK's white collar workers have a dim view of 2016

Political tension with Beijing, high property prices, and an economic slowdown in mainland China have dimmed Hong Kong's growth outlook for 2016 according to the city's white collar workers, a new study has found.

Professional accounting body CPA Australia, which polled Hong Kong-based professionals working in public and private companies, government and other not-for-profit organizations, found 53 percent of respondents described themselves as pessimistic about the region's prospects – a 13 percent increase in gloomy respondents compared to the year before.

Just 9 percent said they saw the economic outlook as "positive," while 34 percent said it was satisfactory.

Almost a third believed Hong Kong's gross domestic product (GDP), the widest measure of economic growth, would expand by between 1-1.9 percent next year; this was a 7 percent decline in the number that expected similarly positive growth in the CPA's 2014 poll. 

According to the new poll, 25 percent said GDP growth would decline in 2016, a 13 percent rise in the number of pessimistic votes on the year preceding.