Hong Kong: Retail sales in Hong Kong across all categories registered 0.9% drop in value terms and a 1.4% fall in volume terms year-on-year, according to statistics released last week by the HK government. Sales have now fallen for the last 23 consecutive months, though the rate of decline last month has been relatively slower than before.
The government reported that marginal improvement in tourist traffic to the country also continued. Visitor arrivals in January 2017 were up by 4.8% to 5.48 million, lower than the 5.4% rise reported in December. Visitors from Mainland China, who account for 79.5% of total arrivals, rose by 7.7%, above the 6.1% increase the precious month with the total number of arrivals reaching 4.35 million.
Last month’s minor boost for jewellers however, proved to be short-lived as the sales in the ‘Jewellery, watches and clocks, and valuable gifts’ category fell by 3.9% in value terms. It may be recalled that in December 2016, the category had finally snapped a 26-consecutive month stretch of decline dating back to October 2014, to register a 2.3% rise in value terms.
The HK Retail Management Association said that most of its member companies forecast a single-digit drop in sales during February 2017.
A government spokesperson was quoted as having said that a more meaningful idea of trends would likely emerge after comparing the performance over the first two months, as the Lunar New Year which was in early February in 2016, fell in late January this year.
