Hong Kong retail sales extended their freefall in November as months of pro-democracy protests scared off tourists, which affected spending and threatened the survival of small businesses.
Sales fell 23.6 percent from a year earlier to HK$30 billion (US$3.85 billion), Hong Kong government data showed yesterday.
It was the 10th consecutive month of declines and compared with a revised 24.4 percent drop in October, which was the steepest on record.
As protests spread across shopping districts in the territory, many retail operators, from prime shopping malls to family-run businesses, have been forced to close early or for entire days over the past few months.
In volume terms, retail sales fell 25.4 percent, compared with a revised 26.4 percent drop in October.
“The near-term outlook for the retail trade continues to hinge on how the local social incidents will evolve,” a government spokesman said. “As such, ending violence and restoring social order are essential to the recovery of the retail trade and indeed that of the whole economy.”
Hong Kong sank into recession for the first time in a decade in the third quarter last year as the protests plunged the city into its worst crisis since it reverted from British to Chinese rule in 1997.
Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan (陳茂波) on Sunday said that a contraction in the fourth quarter last year was “unavoidable” and that the budget next month would focus on boosting the economy.
Tourist arrivals in Hong Kong plunged 55.9 percent year-on-year in November last year, the steepest fall since May 2003, when the territory was hit by a SARS outbreak.
November tourist arrivals fell to 2.65 million, according to the Hong Kong Tourism Board.
That compared with a 43.7 percent plunge in October.
The number of mainland Chinese visitors fell 58.4 percent in November to 1.93 million, accounting for 72.8 percent of arrivals.
High-end retailers, who rely heavily on mainland Chinese spending, have been particularly hard hit.
Sales of jewelry, watches, clocks and valuable gifts plunged 43.5 percent year-on-year in November compared with a revised 43 percent drop in October, data showed.
Medicines and cosmetics fell 33.4 percent, while department store sales dropped 32.9 percent, data showed.
The Hong Kong Retail Management Association estimates that about 7,000 businesses, or more than one in 10 retailers, will be forced to close in the next six months.
The association has called for more government relief measures and urged landlords to cut rent.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by