Hong Kong’s dire economic situation gets dramatically worse - ING

Iris Pang, the economist for Greater China at ING, notes that Hong Kong retail sales fell 24.3%YoY in October after falling 18.2% the previous month. 

• "It is the ninth consecutive month of negative yearly growth. The continuing violent anti-government protests and ongoing China-US trade tensions account for this dismal situation. 
• As we have explained before this is very different from the disruption we saw during the SARS epidemic in the early 2000s.
• Tourists are not going to Hong Kong due to the brutal incidents at the airport, increasingly violent activities elsewhere and not to mention dreadful traffic conditions. 
• Sales of jewellery, mainland China tourists' favourite shopping item in Hong Kong, fell 42.9%YoY in October after big declines in August (-47.1%YoY) and September (-40.8%YoY).
• And, of course, it's not just tourism from mainland China that's declined. Tourism from everywhere (literally everywhere according to the Statistics Department) on a monthly basis since August has dropped by double digits. And this has widespread impact on accommodation and catering spend.   
• And it's not just foreigners who are reducing their spending. From the retail sales data, we note that domestic spending is way down, with clothing sales falling 36.9%YoY in October after a fall of 25.9%YoY in September. It was a similar story for shoes and accessories (-37.0%YoY in October after -17.0%YoY in September).
• The trade war has led to redundancies in that sector. Since 1Q18, when it all started to kick off, employment there has fallen by 15%, affecting 67,500 people up to 3Q18. These people would normally be expected to get a job in the retail sector. But unfortunately, due to the violent protests, we see a 6% decrease in employment in both retail and catering affecting some 35,600 people just in the third quarter. 
• These people are themselves, consumers. If they cannot find a new job, this will put additional pressure on retail sales and will create more unemployment in the industry, thus creating a vicious circle."