Hong Kong’s economy is in peril, but its financial system is not

AS THEY REPAYGDP their debt to society, many Hong Kong prisoners are put to work making useful items like road signs, uniforms, furniture—and the surgical masks that now obscure the faces of almost everyone on the city’s subdued streets. To help stop the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus, which has infected over 28,000 people worldwide, prisoners will now be employed round the clock, boosting mask production by as much as 60%.That, sadly, is one of the few economic ventures that is still expanding in this thrice-struck city. Its shrank last year for the first time in a decade, thanks to the trade war and anti-government protests. The coronavirus now poses a third threat. Some economists have slashed their growth forecasts for Hong Kong by more than for the mainland (see ).