Hong Kong

Hong Kong: Country Intelligence Briefing

Hong Kong presents as a high-income, high-reserve financial center with no independent defense data on file, consistent with its status as a Special Administrative Region of China. The fiscal and governance figures on file describe a jurisdiction with low government debt and comparatively strong administrative capacity, alongside low scores on electoral and liberal democracy.

Economy and Fiscal Position

GDP reached $406.9 billion in 2024, with GDP per capita of $54,074.69 the same year, both per World Bank WDI. Population was 7,524,100 in 2024, per World Bank WDI. Government debt was 14.1 percent of GDP in 2026, per IMF WEO — a comparatively low figure among the indicators on file. Reserves stood at $427.6 billion in 2025, per IMF IFS, a very large holding relative to GDP.

Governance

V-Dem v15 scores Hong Kong's electoral democracy at 0.151 and liberal democracy at 0.142 for 2025, while rating its state capacity considerably higher at 0.756 the same year.

Energy

Primary energy consumption was 0.9826 exajoules in 2024, and electricity generation was 37.44 terawatt-hours in 2024, both per Our World in Data (Energy). Oil and gas production are both recorded at zero terawatt-hours, but that figure is dated 2016 per Our World in Data (Energy) — nearly a decade stale, though Hong Kong has no domestic hydrocarbon extraction industry to speak of, so the zero figure is plausible on its face even if the dating itself is dated.

Data Gaps

No military expenditure, active-personnel, or Composite Index of National Capability (CINC) figures are present in this bundle. This is consistent with Hong Kong's status as a Special Administrative Region without an independent armed force, but it means no security-capacity statement can be made here, and no comparison of Hong Kong's defense posture to any other jurisdiction is possible from this bundle. The oil and gas production figures are nine years old and should be read as stale rather than as a current data point, notwithstanding the underlying absence of domestic production. No series in this bundle updates that zero figure for any year after 2016.

Sources: World Bank WDI; IMF WEO; IMF IFS; V-Dem v15; Our World in Data (Energy).