The government has decided to make domestic consumption the engine of sustained growth. But many people tend to confuse it with personal consumption. And industrial lobbies have been urging the government to issue preferential policies for the property sector and the auto industry to help boost consumption.

Hong Kong's experience of the 1990s, when it saw more than six years of deflation, tells us that an economy doesn't need excessive subprime loans to create a big enough bubble in the property market that would hurt everybody once it bursts.

The experience taught us that a high rate of savings should be viewed as a virtue, not as a vice. It's the inappropriate use of savings that is to blame for the economic ills of today. The Chinese mainland's rapid growth is attributed to massive infrastructure building financed by a high savings rate. The yield from investment into infrastructure is long-term.