Hong Kong is the world's freest economy

Hong Kong has been ranked as the world's freest economy for 13th year in a row by the Heritage Foundation because of its low taxes, openness to investment and lack of trade tariffs. The Asia–Pacific region is home to the top three economies on the index of economic freedom, with Singapore and Australia occupying the second and third positions respectively. United States, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Ireland, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Canada come next on the list. Burma, Zimbabwe, Libya, Cuba and North Korea are at the bottom of the list that covers 157 countries. The economic powerhouses of tommorrow - the so-called BRICs countries fare poorly on economic freedom, with Brazil at 70, India ao 104, China 119 and Russia 120.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington-based public policy research and advocacy group, produces the index of economic freedom in conjunction with the Wall Street Journal. The index, which measures 10 categories of economic variables, gives an indication of the level of governments' intervention in their country's economies. The 10 categories covered in the index are business freedom, trade freedom, fiscal freedom, freedom from government, monetary freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, property rights, freedom from corruption and labor freedom. The average score (0 equals repressed, 100 equals free) was 60.6%, down slightly from last year but the second-highest since the survey began in 1995.

The report can be accessed at http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/