Tourist dearth, falling yuan hurting HK shops: PwC
Hong Kong's retail sector will take months to get back to where it was before Covid with a weaker yuan and disappointing tourist numbers taking a toll, accountancy firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) said on Tuesday. PwC said it expects total retail sales to grow by 17 percent this year, to HK$408 billion. But it also cited lacklustre local consumption as it warned that the sector will need up to 18 months to fully recover.  The firm's consumer markets leader, Michael Cheng, said tourists haven't been returning to the SAR as quickly as expected and the weaker yuan has left mainland visitors unwilling to spend. "If you look at the macro perspective, renminbi has devalued from the beginning of the year... Obviously the purchasing power of individual mainlanders coming to Hong Kong has been lowered, and together with the lacklustre equity market as well as the property market in China, people have been very sceptical of how much they should spend," he said.  Cheng also said a government plan to revitalise Hong Kong’s night-time economy is unlikely to yield strong gains, adding that more should be done to spur daytime spending instead. “We should look at the more important parts, which is day sales. If we can’t really reactivate or try to make sure day sales are in a very strong and healthy status, why do we need to care so much about the minority of the day... within that two or three hours? I think that's something very difficult to push," he said. Cheng added that Hong Kong should organise more large-scale concerts and international sports tournaments, and think of ways to make theme parks more attractive to tourists.