HONG KONG: There were more signs of an economic recovery for the city yesterday as figures released showed Hong Kong's retail sales rose almost 10 percent in October over the same period last year.

The October increase beat market expectations, and was the strongest in 14 months. Data from the Census and Statistics Department said the value of total retail sales in October was provisionally estimated at HK$22.8 billion, up 9.8 percent over a year earlier. This is much stronger than the revised September retail growth of 2.6 percent.

A government spokesman said that the latest retail sales figures signified a further revival in local consumer spending in tandem with the economic rebound. The pick-up in inbound tourism provided an additional boost.

"The expected progressive improvement of the local economy, aided by a more stable labor market, should continue to support consumer confidence and hence the performance of retail trade," he said.

However, the government spokesman pointed out that the growth seen in October was partly magnified by a low base in October last year when retail sales suffered a blow in the aftershock of the global financial crisis.

According to Bloomberg, the median estimate of nine economists was for a 7.6 percent increase.

"Retail sales will keep rising in coming months as the jobless rate gradually falls," said Paul Tang, chief economist at Bank of East Asia.

After netting out the effect of price changes over the same period, the volume of total retail sales increased by 8.2 percent. Encouragingly, people were buying more clothes and durable goods, not just food, suggesting that they are prepared to spend on discretionary items.

Sham Kar Wai, the chairman of fashion retailer I.T., said this month that the company may resume its expansion, "if we can find good locations" after slowing growth because of the financial crisis.

In October, the volume of sales of footwear and clothes increased the most, by 17.8 percent. This was followed by sales of consumer durable goods (+15.2 percent in volume); fuels (+14.9 percent); commodities in department stores (+13.8 percent); electrical goods and photographic equipment (+13.7 percent); jewelry, watches and clocks, and valuable gifts (+11.9 percent); motor vehicles and parts (+9.4 percent); furniture and fixtures (+8.2 percent); miscellaneous consumer goods (+5.9 percent); wearing apparel (+5.5 percent); food, alcoholic drinks and tobacco (+3.0 percent); and commodities in supermarkets (+1.5 percent).

The volume of total retail sales increased by 6.9 percent in the three months ending October 2009 when compared with the preceding three-month period.

However, taking the first ten months of 2009 together, total retail sales decreased by 2.2 percent in value or 3.1 percent in volume when compared with the same period last year.

(HK Edition 12/02/2009 page4)