Financial Secretary for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Paul Chan Mo-po gives a speech on the 2020-21 budget of Hong Kong in the Legislative Council on February 26. (Photo: HKSAR government)

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR)'s Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po on Wednesday denied that the city's economic policy is controlled by the Chinese central government, after the US-based Heritage Foundation removed the HKSAR from its annual league table ranking the world's freest economies.

According to South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong local media outlet, Chan said that the foundation's removal of Hong Kong from its list is groundless, and the decision involves its ideological inclination and political bias.

"I do not agree that our economic policy has been taken over by the central government," he said. 

He emphasized that under the "one country, two systems" policy, the city has its core economic competiveness with the free flow of capital, the free movement of talent, and the pegging of the Hong Kong and US dollars.

The foundation publishes its index every year, which measures economic freedom. Before 2020, Hong Kong topped the list for more than two decades. In 2020, Singapore took Hong Kong's place as No.1.

However, according to media reports, the foundation  quietly took out the HKSAR and the Macao Special Administrative Region from the list, on the grounds that even through economic policies in these two SARs have brought economic freedom to local people, these policies are eventually controlled by the Chinese central government.