Number of restaurants, retail shops stable: govt
The government on Wednesday said the number of business outlets remained stable in recent years, despite claims Hong Kong was going through a wave of shop closures due to a sluggish economy. Commerce minister Algernon Yau made the comment when responding to a written question from lawmaker Andrew Lam, who noted that netizens had opened a social media group on the closures, with more than 300,000 users joining the group. Yau noted there were more than 95,000 outlets in the catering, retail, beauty and hairdressing sectors at the end of last year. "The number of establishments of these industries had once recorded a drop owing to the impact of the epidemic in the last few years, but it has rebounded since the end of 2021 to remain stable with the epidemic subsiding in recent years," he said. The minister said officials do not keep records of shop openings and closures and that these were business decisions based on a number of factors. Yau said as small to medium enterprises faced challenges, due to more Hongkongers travelling north of the border to consume, the administration had been providing help through a number of measures. These include low-interest concessionary loans of nearly HK$19 billion to ensure these companies could maintain steady cash flow. He said officials would continue to closely monitor the situation, and help firms "ride out the storm".