On January 4, the Census and Statistics Department of the Hong Kong Government announced the provisional statistics of total retail sales in November. It is estimated that the total retail sales value of the retail industry will be 29.5 billion yuan, a 4.2% decrease from the previous year, which is far lower than the forecasted growth of 4.8% previously surveyed by economists.
The data unexpectedly marked the largest drop in eight months since March 2022 (-13.8%), mainly due to the pandemic’s impact and the global economy’s slowdown.
A government spokesman said retail busi …
