Retail Sales Suffer Their Worst Quarter Since 1998

Retail sales in Hong Kong plummeted by 18.3 percent in September, making the third quarter the city's worst three-month span in 21 years, with officials blaming the ongoing unrest for the sector's woes.

The news comes just a day after the government announced that the SAR has officially entered a technical recession with a 3.2 percent economic contraction in the third quarter.

September's retail sales fall was better than August's 22.9 percent drop.

But the latest figure means that for the first nine months of 2019 taken together, local spending was down 7.3 percent.

Luxury items were worst affected, with jewellery, watches, clocks, and valuable gifts down almost 41 percent.

Department stores saw a 26 percent drop in business, clothes were down 26 percent, and cosmetics and medicines declined almost 22 percent.

A government spokesman said the ongoing unrest is continuing to take a heavy toll on tourism and consumption-related activities.

For the third quarter as a whole, retail sales volume fell by 19.5 per cent year-on-year, almost on par with the record decline in the third quarter of 1998.