HONG KONG, the city that hosted 65 million visitors in 2018, has been closed to the world since the Covid scare of March 2020 - and there is still little sign of it re-opening, Bloomberg reports.
Strict Covid restrictions - such as forcing restaurants to shut at 6pm.- throttled consumer spending. In February and March, retail sales plunged more than 12 per cent from a year earlier. The economy contracted four per cent in the first quarter, one of its worst performances in the past 30 years.
Behind the bleak figures is the human cost. Small business owners facing potential ruin after being forced to shutter their operations for months on end.
Residents choosing to emigrate rather than take the risk of their childrens' schools closing again. Uncertainty over future policy is the enduring theme of many interviewed by Bloomberg.
Quelling such doubts will be key if John Lee, the city's next leader, is to revive the city's economy when he takes over on July 1, the 25th anniversary of the return to Chinese rule.
Elizabeth Chan has experienced the economic pain first hand. The government ordered the closure of her beauty salon business along with gyms, bars, cinemas and theme parks in early January for the second time in two years.
While the move did little to blunt the spread of omicron, it's almost driven her business into the ground. She's closed two of her three Elite Skin & Hair salons and reduced staff to 15 from 50. Salons were allowed to open last month, but Chan estimates about 20 per cent of her clients have left the city.
'We are very worried, our clients are worried,' said Ms Chan. 'From an accounting point of view, we should close down the business. It's gone past the point of survival.'
Anthony Yu opened The Galley, an airplane-themed restaurant in the city's gritty Tai Kok Tsui district, before the pandemic brought hong Kong's air traffic to a halt. In 2018, the last year before civil unrest and Covid curbed travel, the airport handled about 75 million passengers. Last year it was 1.4 million, a drop of 98 per cent.
Due to onerous quarantine rules for travellers, the highly-rated restaurant is now the closest many can get to being in the sky. Diners sit in plane seats next to oval windows, being attended to by staff dressed in aircrew uniforms.
'Customers say because we can't travel we are dining in your restaurant so we get a closer feeling to it,' said Mr Yu. 'People even bring their pets.'
Social distancing rules crushed his business, which also includes a Las Vegas-themed bar, hot pot restaurant and takeaway outlet. Sales plunged 90 per cent in the first three months of the year as the government banned evening dine-in and limited the number of diners per table to two.
In Hong Kong's financial district, construction continues on the buildings owned by Li Ka-shing's CK Asset Holdings Ltd and Lee Shau Kee's Henderson Land Development Co Yet demand for office space is falling.
The city recorded just HK$7.8 billion (US$994 million) of commercial property transactions in the first quarter, compared to a quarterly average of about HK$30 billion in 2018, Cushman & Wakefield data show.
'I've been working in this industry for more than 25 years,' said James Mak, a district sales director in Midland IC&I Ltd. and who helps broker sales of office floors. 'This is the worst.'
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Strict Covid restrictions - such as forcing restaurants to shut at 6pm.- throttled consumer spending. In February and March, retail sales plunged more than 12 per cent from a year earlier. The economy contracted four per cent in the first quarter, one of its worst performances in the past 30 years.
Behind the bleak figures is the human cost. Small business owners facing potential ruin after being forced to shutter their operations for months on end.
Residents choosing to emigrate rather than take the risk of their childrens' schools closing again. Uncertainty over future policy is the enduring theme of many interviewed by Bloomberg.
Quelling such doubts will be key if John Lee, the city's next leader, is to revive the city's economy when he takes over on July 1, the 25th anniversary of the return to Chinese rule.
Elizabeth Chan has experienced the economic pain first hand. The government ordered the closure of her beauty salon business along with gyms, bars, cinemas and theme parks in early January for the second time in two years.
While the move did little to blunt the spread of omicron, it's almost driven her business into the ground. She's closed two of her three Elite Skin & Hair salons and reduced staff to 15 from 50. Salons were allowed to open last month, but Chan estimates about 20 per cent of her clients have left the city.
'We are very worried, our clients are worried,' said Ms Chan. 'From an accounting point of view, we should close down the business. It's gone past the point of survival.'
Anthony Yu opened The Galley, an airplane-themed restaurant in the city's gritty Tai Kok Tsui district, before the pandemic brought hong Kong's air traffic to a halt. In 2018, the last year before civil unrest and Covid curbed travel, the airport handled about 75 million passengers. Last year it was 1.4 million, a drop of 98 per cent.
Due to onerous quarantine rules for travellers, the highly-rated restaurant is now the closest many can get to being in the sky. Diners sit in plane seats next to oval windows, being attended to by staff dressed in aircrew uniforms.
'Customers say because we can't travel we are dining in your restaurant so we get a closer feeling to it,' said Mr Yu. 'People even bring their pets.'
Social distancing rules crushed his business, which also includes a Las Vegas-themed bar, hot pot restaurant and takeaway outlet. Sales plunged 90 per cent in the first three months of the year as the government banned evening dine-in and limited the number of diners per table to two.
In Hong Kong's financial district, construction continues on the buildings owned by Li Ka-shing's CK Asset Holdings Ltd and Lee Shau Kee's Henderson Land Development Co Yet demand for office space is falling.
The city recorded just HK$7.8 billion (US$994 million) of commercial property transactions in the first quarter, compared to a quarterly average of about HK$30 billion in 2018, Cushman & Wakefield data show.
'I've been working in this industry for more than 25 years,' said James Mak, a district sales director in Midland IC&I Ltd. and who helps broker sales of office floors. 'This is the worst.'
SeaNews Turkey
