John James Cowperthwaite
Sir John James Cowperthwaite | |
|---|---|
| Financial Secretary of Hong Kong | |
| In office 17 April 1961 – 30 June 1971 | |
| Monarch | Elizabeth II |
| Governor | Sir Robert Black Sir David Trench |
| Preceded by | Arthur Grenfell Clarke |
| Succeeded by | Charles Philip Haddon-Cave |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 25 April 1915 Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom |
| Died | 21 January 2006 (aged 90) Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom |
| Spouse | Sheila Mary Thomson |
| Children | John James Hamish Cowperthwaite |
| Alma mater | Merchiston Castle School St Andrews University Christ's College, Cambridge |
| John James Cowperthwaite | |||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 郭伯偉 | ||||||||
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Sir John James Cowperthwaite, KBE, CMG (Chinese: 郭伯偉爵士; 25 April 1915 – 21 January 2006), was a British civil servant who served as Financial Secretary of Hong Kong from 1961 to 1971. His introduction of free market economic policies are widely credited with turning postwar Hong Kong into a thriving global financial centre. During Cowperthwaite's tenure as Financial Secretary, real wages in Hong Kong rose by 50% and the portion of the population in acute poverty fell from 50% to 15%.