And this could be the reason why luxury retailers are hit hardest in this downturn. For example, Hong Kong’s January jewelry sales dropped 3.9 percent, compared to a 2.3 percent rise in the month before.
Jacques Branellec, CEO of Jewelmer, told CNBC Asia’s “Squawk Box,” “What we’ve seen in terms of the mainland luxury shoppers, a lot of them have actually migrated to Japan. So in our location in Ginza, we’ve seen a huge growth from the Chinese mainland tourists that we used to see in Hong Kong.”
Looking forward, analysts’ 2017 outlooks seem to be predicting stability — at best. And some say maybe worse is in store for retail numbers, going into the second half of this year with so many uncertainties. Starting in the third quarter, uncertainties abound around monetary policy from the U.S. Federal Reserve and the direction of the renminbi, according to Wong.
A Hong Kong government spokesman gave the same line from the previous month: “Looking ahead, the near-term outlook for the retail sales business will continue to depend on the performance of inbound tourism and on whether local consumer sentiment would be affected by the various uncertainties in the external environment.”
