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Bloomberg
Hong Kong retail sales by value tumbled again in January, entering a 12-month losing streak after a Lunar New Year holiday interrupted by the coronavirus outbreak and amid months of anti-Beijing protests.
Retail sales by value fell 21.4% in January from a year earlier, extending a run of declines that started in February, the longest downward trajectory in three years. Retail sales volume also dropped 23%.
Hong Kong’s retailers and shopping malls had been battered by months of political unrest before the viral outbreak that emerged in China in December and escalated ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday.
Preliminary visitor arrivals data for February showed average daily traffic to the city plummeted to fewer than 3,000 people, according to the Hong Kong Tourism Board. That’s an almost 99% decline from the year-ago period, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
Before the current turmoil, the longest losing streak for Hong Kong’s retail sector was a two-year stretch that started in March 2015 and ended in February 2017.
Several factors were behind that downturn including the Occupy Central protests, China stepping up an anti-corruption campaign and Japan and South Korea taking more tourists from mainland China, diverting some away from Hong Kong.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s administration rolled out the boldest budget in recent years, giving a payment of $1,286 to each permanent resident of the city 18 or older in an attempt to stabilise the economy.
Months of political unrest over China’s role in the city pushed Hong Kong last year into its first annual recession in a decade, with economists forecasting a second annual contraction in 2020 as disruptions from the coronavirus outbreak further depress output.