Amidst a wider slowdown in retail sales across multiple categories during the month of November 2018, sales in the jewellery, watches & clocks and valuable gifts category dropped by 3.9% year-on-year, according to figures released by the Census and Statistics Department of the HK government. This was the first y-on-y decline in the category since June 2017, it was reported.

In terms of overall value, November retail sales were marginally up by 1.4%, with a similarly small 1.2% rise in sales in volume terms. While, this was the 21st continuous month of expansion in overall values, it was also the lowest rate of increase recorded since June 2017.

A government report states that consumer sentiment could have been affected by “weaker asset prices and the external uncertainties”, the latter a reference to the ongoing US-China trade disputes and the continued volatility in global financial markets.

On the plus side, tourism and the resultant trade continued to rise, with tourist arrivals in the month of November reaching 5.99 million, a 20.6% increase over the previous year, and the highest figure reported since February 2018. Among them, visitors from the Mainland accounted for 77.2% of the total and registered a rise of 25.8%.

Despite the recent slower pace of growth, sales for the first 11 months of 2018 were up 9.7% in value and 8.4% in volume as compared to the same period a year earlier.

According to the Hong Kong Retail Management Association, members polled said that they expected to see flat growth in the fourth quarter, high single-digit growth for 2018 and low single-digit growth for 2019.