Hong Kong's economy grew 2.8 percent in real terms year-on-year in the first quarter. On a seasonally adjusted quarter-to-quarter comparison, real GDP expanded by 0.2 percent.
Announcing the figures Friday, government economist Helen Chan said the modest growth was mainly backed by a relatively resilient domestic sector, while the external sector is still facing an unsteady global economic environment.
Declines were recorded in exports to advanced markets like the U.S., Europe and Japan, but solid growth in both the Chinese mainland and some other Asian markets resulted in exports of goods rising by 8.8 percent in real terms.
She said the strong growth was also largely because of a surge in exports of non-monetary gold.
Exports of services saw a 4.9 percent year-on-year growth, under the support of vibrant inbound tourism and improved financial market activity.
Domestically, private consumption expenditure grew 7 percent in real terms over a year earlier, on the back of broadly supportive labour market conditions, with a relatively low seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 3.5 percent for the quarter.
Underlying consumer price inflation held stable at 3.8 percent, having eased successively last year. Residential property prices fell slightly 0.1 percent in March, reversing the exuberant situation in the first two months of 2013 when flat prices on average rose 2.6 percent per month.
Chan said as recent developments in the global economic environment have been largely consistent with the picture envisaged earlier this year, and Hong Kong's economic growth in the first quarter also accords with expectations, the GDP growth forecast of 1.5 percent to 3.5 percent for 2013 as announced in the Budget has been maintained.
She forecast that, with the lagged effects of the surge in private housing rents over the past year progressively feeding through, inflation will likely to rise back slightly in the coming months.
Likewise, the forecast rates of headline and underlying consumer price inflation for 2013 put out in the Budget, at 4.5 percent and 4.2 percent respectively, are also being maintained for the time being, she added./.