Hong Kong has been dropped from The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom this year because its economic policies are controlled by Beijing. Hong Kong topped the list for 25 years till 2019. Financial experts in Hong Kong believe that the Chinese communist regime’s rapid encroachment on Hong Kong’s freedom has accelerated the deterioration of Hong Kong’s economic environment. On Mar. 4, the Heritage Foundation released the index for 2021. Singapore ranked as the world’s freest economy for the second year. Both Hong Kong and Macau are special administrative regions of China that are no longer included in the Index of Economic Freedom. The Heritage Foundation said in its news release that the reason they are no longer being ranked is because the index “now includes only countries exercising full sovereign control over their economic policies,” and in Hong Kong and Macau “developments in recent years have demonstrated unambiguously that …