The US think tank Heritage Foundation now runs Hong Kong together with China.
The Chinese special administrative region Hong Kong is no longer listed in the ranking of the freest business locations in the world. The US-based Heritage Foundation, which consistently led Hong Kong in first place in the prestigious ranking from 1995 to 2019, has completely removed the financial metropolis in the latest edition of the list. Hong Kong is now assigned to China, which is in 107th place.
The Washington-based think tank said that this year the index only measures “economic freedom in independent countries where governments have sovereign control over economic policy”. In Hong Kong, developments over the past few years have “clearly shown that politics is ultimately controlled from Beijing”. The Chinese Special Administrative Region of Macau was also removed from the ranking for the same reason.
After the government cracked down on pro-democracy demonstrators, Hong Kong was overtaken by Singapore at the top of the rankings for the first time last year. Later that summer, Beijing introduced a controversial security law in Hong Kong, which made the situation of activists even worse. In this year's ranking, Singapore was once again in first place, followed by New Zealand, Australia and Switzerland.
