Economy - overview:
Hong Kong has a free market economy highly dependent on international trade and finance - the value of goods and services trade, including the sizable share of reexports, is more than four times GDP. Hong Kong's open economy has left it exposed to the global economic slowdown, but its increasing integration with China has helped it recover from the downturn more quickly than many observers anticipated. Hong Kong over the past few years has become increasingly integrated with China through trade, tourism, and financial links, including in 2009 becoming the site of the first Chinese yuan trade settlement facility outside of China. The mainland has long been Hong Kong's largest trading partner, accounting for nearly half of Hong Kong's exports by value. As a result of China's easing of travel restrictions, the number of mainland tourists to the territory has surged from 4.5 million in 2001 to 16.9 million in 2008, when they outnumbered visitors from all other countries combined. Hong Kong has also established itself as the premier stock market for Chinese firms seeking to list abroad. More than one-third of the firms listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange are now mainland Chinese companies, and they account for 60% of the Exchange's market capitalization. During the past decade, as Hong Kong's manufacturing industry moved to the mainland, its service industry has grown rapidly and in 2009 accounted for more than 90% of the territory's GDP. Hong Kong's natural resources are limited, and food and raw materials must be imported. GDP growth averaged a strong 5% from 1989 to 2007. Hong Kong's GDP fell in 2009 as a result of the global financial crisis, but third quarter 2009 real GDP grew over the second quarter, indicating that its economic recovery is underway. Hong Kong continues to link its currency closely to the US dollar, maintaining an arrangement established in 1983.

GDP (purchasing power parity):
$301.3 billion (2009 est.)