Boston, MA -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/14/2013 -- The Hong Kong Retail Report examines the long-term potential of the local consumer market, but flags short-term concerns about the impact on Hong Kong's economic outlook of the struggling property market as prices become even more overstretched.

The report examines how best to maximise returns in the Hong Kong retail market while minimising investment risk, and also explores the impact of a weakening global and, more crucially, Chinese economy on the Hong Kong consumer and on the ability of producers and exporters to realise returns in the short term. The report also analyses the growth and risk management strategies being employed by the leading players in the Hong Kong retail sector, as they seek to maximise the growth opportunities offered by the local market.

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Hong Kong per capita consumer spending is forecast to increase by 23% to 2017, compared with a regional growth average of 43%. Hong Kong comes fifth (out of seven) in BMI's Asia Retail Risk/Reward Ratings, although it outperforms significantly for risk.

Among all retail categories, consumer electronics will be the outperformer through to 2017 in growth terms. Sales are forecast to increase by 24.5% between 2013 and 2017, from US$4.75bn to US$5.91bn as strong demand for high-end products such as multimedia notebooks, 3G phones and smartphones boosts the sub-sector. In the competitive arena, BMI sees upside potential in the government's establishment of the HKD300mn CreateSmart Initiative to guide development of creative industries outside of film and design.

Over the last quarter, BMI has revised the following forecasts/views:

- Led by a slowdown in trade activity, particularly stemming from cooling demand from the mainland, the economic deceleration in Hong Kong that we have been expecting appears to be taking shape. Meanwhile, the softening in real estate transactional activity is likely to be reflective of a stabilisation within the property market and we expect scope for further price rises to be severely capped. However, we still believe that a normalisation in interest rates and a boost in housing supply towards the end of 2014 will be the catalysts for a housing correction. Given the poverty of data, we have revised our 2013 and 2014 real GDP growth projections down to 2.4% and 3.0% respectively, from 3.3% and 3.6% previously.
- Unsurprisingly, we expect private consumption to remain the main outperformer, contributing 2.5 percentage points to real GDP growth in 2013. The retail sector has yet to be materially impacted by the slowdown while unemployment has remained relatively stable thus far. Inbound tourism from the mainland has remained fairly robust and even as tourism expenditure may slow, it is still expected to provide supportive pressure for consumption spending throughout the year.

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