Hong Kong Retailers Set to Post Slowest Growth in Four Years

(Reuters) – Hong Kong retailers’ sales in January were the lowest since 2003 and revenue growth this year will likely be the slowest in at least four years, hit by a drop in visitors from the mainland who have been put off in part by rising hostility among Hong Kongers. Fifteen listed Hong Kong retailers with a market value of at least $100 million, including Emperor Watch & Jewellery Ltd , the distributor of brands such as Rolex and Tag Heuer, are forecast to post 7.5 percent growth in combined revenue this fiscal year, according to Thomson Reuters data. That would be the slowest pace in the four years for which comparable data is available. “Hong Kong for a long time has been the shopping destination of choice for mainland Chinese, but there is a strong backlash and a perception of real negative sentiment toward the mainlanders, turning a lot of mainland Chinese off,” said James Roy of China Market Research Group in Shanghai. More than 40 million mainland Chinese visited Hong Kong last year, vastly outnumbering the former British colony’s population of 7.2 million, but the pace of growth in arrivals slowed sharply at the start of the year, data show. In

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