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Favorable Factors Drive Retail Sales in Hong Kong
Recent retail sales have been buoyant thanks to favorable factors in the Hong Kong economy, a manager of three big Hong Kong-based shopping malls said Tuesday.
At a press briefing, Jolyon Culbertson, director and general manager responsible for Pacific Place, Festival Walk and Citygate, said all the three shopping malls managed by Swire Properties have been outperforming the market.
Taking Pacific Place as an example, Culbertson said that in the last two quarters, retail sales of Pacific Place gained a firm growth of between 10 and 15 percent.
The general manager attributed the increase in retail sales to a number of favorable factors in the Hong Kong economy.
Quoting figures from government and other sources, he said Hong Kong's real household income growth and real GDP growth have rebounded substantially, by 7.8 percent and 14.3 percent respectively in the first quarter this year.
Visitor arrivals have risen markedly from 900,000 per month on average in 1999 to more than 1.1 million in recent months, he said.
The employment condition has improved significantly, with the unemployment rate dropping from 6.2 percent in 1999 to 5.1 percent in 2000. Deflation has also eased persistently since the third quarter of 1999, from 6 percent to 4.5 percent, Culbertson said.
"All these factors combine to make the outlook positive for the retail industry in general," Culbertson said, predicting that the growth trend will continue for a fairly long period.
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