HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong’s retail sales climbed for a 11th month in December helped by continued economic recovery but the growth was at a slower pace as consumer sentiment was dampened by a COVID-19 outbreak fuelled by the contagious Omicron variant.
Retail sales in December rose 6.2% from a year earlier to HK$33.3 billion ($4.27 billion), government data showed on Monday. That compares with 7.1% increase in November.
“The latest wave of local epidemic and the tightened anti-epidemic measures have weighed on consumption sentiment and posed renewed pressures on the retail sector,” a government spokesman said.
In volume terms, retail sales in December grew 3.4% from a year earlier, compared with a revised 4.3% growth in November.
For the full year of 2021, total retail sales increased 8.1% in value terms and rose 6.5% in volume. That compared to a 24.3% decline in value and 25.5% drop in volume in 2020, the first year that the pandemic hit.
Online retail sales value in December jumped 31.5% from a year earlier year compared with a revised figure of 28.2% growth in November.
Sales of jewellery, watches, clocks and valuable gifts, which before the pandemic relied heavily on tourists from the mainland, climbed 24.0% in December versus a 14.4% surge in November, the data showed.
Clothing, footwear and related products rose 12.5% in December against a revised 17.2% jump in November.
Tourist arrivals in December soared 94.1% from a year earlier to 9,448. That compares with a 59.2% increase in November. However, total visitor arrivals for 2021 plunged 97.4% year-on-year to 91,398.
The city’s economy grew 4.8% year on year in the fourth quarter, and it grew 6.4% for the whole 2021.
Seasonally adjusted unemployment rate slipped to 3.9% in the October-December quarter as the labour market improved along with a sustained economic recovery.
($1 = 7.7978 Hong Kong dollars)
(Reporting by Donny Kwok and Twinnie Siu; Editing by Simon Camero-Moore)
