HK retail sales edge down 0.1 pct year on year

Hong Kong retail sales, provisionally estimated at 39 billion HK dollars (5 billion U.S. dollars), edged down 0.1 percent year on year in May, the Census and Statistics Department said Monday.

For the first five months of 2015, the value of total retail sales decreased by 1.8 percent compared with the same period in 2014.

After netting out the effect of price changes over the same period, the volume of total retail sales increased by 4.6 percent over a year earlier in May. For the first five months, total retail sales increased by 1.3 percent in volume compared with the same period in 2014.

The value of sales of jewellery, watches and clocks, and valuable gifts decreased by 14.9 percent in May. On the other hand, the value of sales of commodities in department stores increased by 7.6 percent.

A government spokesman said that retail sales showed some relative improvement in May. Nevertheless, the drag from the slowdown in tourist spending remained notable, as the sales of jewellery, watches and clocks, and valuable gifts continued to register a double-digit year-on-year decline.

The near-term outlook for retail sales will still depend much on the performance of inbound tourism, according to the spokesman.

Yet, the stable job and income conditions should render some support to local consumer sentiment. "We will monitor closely how these factors and the changes in the external environment would affect the retail business down the road," the spokesman said. Endi