On June 21, the Hong Kong Council for Social Service launched the SAR's first Social Development Index. Our Chief Economist, IAN K PERKIN, was a respondent at the launch ceremony and reports on the outcome.

Social Development Indices do not have a good reputation. Just witness the debate that always surrounds every update of the UN development index, which purports to offer a global comparison of economic and social advancement.

Their aim is to measure a range of quantitative and qualitative factors directly affecting the economic and social advancement of societies, but often the most vigorous arguments are about their methodology, content and outcome.

It was therefore with an equal measure of caution and suspicion that I approached the task of respondent at the SAR's first Social Development Index, which aims to measure Hong Kong's advancement over the past two decades.

After all this was a project commissioned by a social advocacy group, the Hong Kong Council of Social Service, raising the prospect that its conclusions might be directed to furthering the aims of the group involved, rather than factual analysis.

True, the Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa is the group's patron and it had assembled a highly respected Board of Consultants under economist and Lingnan head Professor Edward K Y Chen to oversee the work on the index.

It had also engaged a distinguished scholar, Professor Richard J Estes of the University of Pennsylvania, to work with the board on the entire project, which was completed in fairly rapid time. Nevertheless, some lingering doubts remained.

They were dispelled, however, with the release of the index and its accompanying report. While it does point to some very severe problems in the development of the Hong Kong community, it is, taken in its entirety, a testimony to the benefits of the SAR's pursuit of economic advancement.

Put in its simplest terms, the index shows that substantial social progress took place in Hong Kong in the period studied between 1991 and 1998, with a net gain in the index over the entire period of 75 per cent.

This is all the more impressive when it is considered that this time span was not just a period of rapid economic growth, but of dramatic structural adjustment in the Hong Kong economy. It is a period that spanned the opening of China, the decline of local manufacturing and the rise of the services sector.

Naturally, the advancement was not uniform across all of the components of the index and there are indications of the emergence of some real social problems, but overall the index confirms that the pursuit of economic growth has served Hong Kong well.

Professor Estes and his team have produced an index, involving 47 social, economic and political indicators across 14 development sectors, that provides a valuable addition to the available data and potentially a powerful tool for measuring future social development in the SAR.

Of course, as with other such indices, it is possible to argue about the methodology and to debate what it does include and what it should perhaps include, and perhaps the weight given to individual indicators in the overall index.

It is also possible to argue about the resulting division of Hong Kong society into four "distinct and unequal societies" -- the "well-off;" the "socially secure;" the "socially insecure" and a "growing underclass" of the permanently impoverished.

At least to this writer, Hong Kong society has more "grey areas" than these divisions suggest and there is greater mobility across divisions than in many other societies. The aspirations and abilities of the vast majority of the population also reinforce this mobility.

Personally, too, I have been stressing for a number of years now just how important it is to understand Hong Kong's (rapid) population growth and changing population structure and what it might mean for the future, particularly planning the Hong Kong society of the future.

This "back to square one" approach -- understanding Hong Kong's likely population growth and future population structure -- is vital to understanding what sort of society we will be coping with. Too little attention is being paid to this important determinant and more emphasis might well been given it in the index.

But, for the most part, the new index confirms and quantifies a lot of what we know, or suspected we knew, about the community that is Hong Kong, its social development to date -- and, perhaps more importantly, the challenges ahead.

It confirms the importance of sustained and sustainable economic growth to community development and it confirms that the pursuit of economic growth and development -- whatever the minority side effects might be -- helps the vast majority of the community.

Of course, there are always concerns about those who are left out of this prosperity, but this is true of all developed countries. At least the development of this new index provides a better indication of the likely future areas of difficulty than we have had in the past.

According to the index outcome there is a need to be concerned about the growing number of poor and the homeless (particularly among new arrivals) and what support is available to them (always allowing for the fact that people should, above all, have the right to choose their own lifestyle).

It has to be said, too, that problems of the poor and the homeless can quite readily and easily be dealt with once society makes up its mind to do so. Usually, it is a matter of money.

What was most concerning and disturbing about the index and report was the apparent emergence of some problems that are far more difficult to deal with, because they are not just a matter of money.

These are the concerns expressed about inter-personal and domestic violence, rising levels of suicide, drug abuse and drug dependency and criminal activity at a street level and up.

Then, of course, there is concern about the physical environment, which is of course about money, but also about community attitudes and demands, the ability and willingness to act to reduce pollution and improve the environment.