23-41  Public Expenditure by Policy Area Group
	(HKD 100 million)
Item	2004/2005	2005/2006	2006/2007	2007/2008	2008/2009
Community and External Affairs	77.64*	77.94*	80.26*	82.10*	386.13
Economic	126.63*	125.37*	127.24*	134.63*	253.15
Education	544.51	542.65*	519.34*	538.25*	759.35
Environment and Food	101.94	96.81	101.88	120.51*	123.84
Health	321.99	316.16	321.27	336.23*	368.48
Housing	179.61	154.05*	146.71	143.36*	183.00
Infrastructure	309.23	269.68	235.45	227.15*	248.44
Security	255.41	247.92	251.22	279.85*	282.00
Social Welfare	332.85	332.62	335.40	348.68*	402.55
Support	321.56	286.62	298.67	313.19*	339.08
Total	2571.37	2449.82	2417.44	2523.95*	3346.02
Notes: Figures for 2008/2009 are revised estimate.
Expenditure figures for 2008/2009 and before have been adjusted to align with the cost-neutral transfers between policy area groups
adopted in the 2009/2010 estimate.
Public expenditure comprises government expenditure (i.e. all expenditure charged to the General Revenue Account and financed by the
Government's statutory funds but excluding Capital Investment Fund), and expenditure by the Trading Funds and the Housing Authority.  It
does not include expenditure by those organisations (including statutory organisations) in which the Government has only an equity position,
such as the Airport Authority and the MTR Corporation Ltd.  Similarly, advances and equity investments from the Capital Investment Fund
as well as repayment of government bonds and notes are excluded as they do not reflect the actual consumption of resources by the Government.