(Fighting against New Crown Pneumonia) Hong Kong retail sales in March fell 42% year-on-year
China News Agency, Hong Kong, May 6 (Reporter Zhang Xiaoxi) The Census and Statistics Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region announced on the 5th that the provisional estimate of the total value of retail sales in Hong Kong in March this year was 23 billion Hong Kong dollars, a decrease of 42% from the same month last year and a continuous decline 14 months.
According to statistics, the value of sales of jewellery, watches and clocks and valuable gifts in Hong Kong's retail industries fell the most in March, falling by 75.2%; followed by clothing fell by 67.2%, and pharmaceuticals and cosmetics fell by 63.8%. The value of goods sold in supermarkets increased by 16.1%.
Compared with the year-on-year decrease of 44% in February, the retail industry in Hong Kong said that retail sales continued to decline sharply in March, due to the global epidemic of new pneumonia and the epidemic prevention measures that stopped the inbound tourism industry.
In an interview with the China News Agency on the 6th, Associate Professor Zhuang Tailiang of the Department of Economics of the Chinese University of Hong Kong pointed out that the value of total retail sales in Hong Kong has fallen by more than a year, and the year-on-year decline in February and March this year has expanded. The main reason Control of entry and exit ports is still under the influence of the epidemic, resulting in a substantial reduction in tourists to Hong Kong.
Zhuang Tailiang believes that the reduction in the number of tourists has the greatest impact on Hong Kong's retail industry. Since June last year, Hong Kong's economy has been severely affected by the storm of revisions. At the beginning of this year, it again encountered a new coronary pneumonia epidemic, and retail-related data will inevitably show a greater decline.
But he also said that during the storm and the epidemic, some consumption may gradually be transferred to the Internet, and these related data may not be included in the statistics of the retail industry. In the future, he expects that tourists will come to Hong Kong after the epidemic has basically ended and the immigration restrictions have been “unbound”, but the time may have to wait until June or later.
As for whether there will be extreme violence that will further affect the Hong Kong economy, Zhuang Tailiang believes that continuous large-scale conflicts should not happen again. When the economy is not good, Hong Kong citizens will also realize the importance of economic development. (Finish)