Hong Kong shops shutter as months of protest darken economic gloom
Hong Kong jeweler Jun Lam has already closed one shop. His remaining outlet sits in an almost deserted shopping mall at the heart of a district regularly hit by sometimes violent protests that have rocked the Chinese-ruled city since June.
Restaurants, hotels and retail outlets like Lam’s, many of which cater to mostly mainland Chinese tourists, form a central pillar of a small business sector that employs more than one million people in the city.
But with visitors deterred by months of violence, many firms have closed or are struggling to turn a profit.
“It’s only a third of the pedestrian flow compared with the past.
On some days, almost no shops were open in this mall,” Lam said. To stay afloat, he has closed his other store in the New Territories district of Tseun Wan, the site of some violent demonstrations between protesters.
The Capital shopping mall, where Lam’s remaining shop sits, almost half the units were closed or emptied.
In the surrounding Tsim Sha Tsui shopping and hotel precinct, many shutters on closed shops bore ‘To Let’ signs or letters demanding rent from landlords.
Just last Sunday, the district was blanketed in tear gas during cat-and-mouse clashes between police and pro-democracy protesters.
It was the 21st consecutive weekend of protests over fears Beijing is tightening its grip on the territory, the worst political crisis since colonial ruler Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997.
The unrest has dealt a double blow to the financial hub, which was already grappling with sluggish economic growth.
Government support has been modest, and there is little optimism amid a record decline in retail sales, rising unemployment and bankruptcies that have started to hit banks’ bottom lines.
Larger firms impacted by the protests can often fall back on their wider footprint, access to emergency capital or international business, industry watchers say, but for many small firms there is no such safety net.
“It’s a very serious situation,” said Brian King, associate dean of the School of Hotel and Tourism Management at Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
“There is no buffer for the owners – it’s not easy for them to get loans and there’s not a particularly strong welfare system in Hong Kong.”