Until the middle of 2019, our panelists were upbeat about Hong Kong’s prospects for next year, with our Consensus Forecast having seen GDP growth tracking at just under 2.5%. Since then, however, crippling social and political unrest has battered the economy and caused our panelists to rapidly revise down their forecasts.
Underlining the severity of the situation, Hong Kong’s retail sales plunged 26.2% in October, marking an all-time low and suggesting the economy is heading for a sharp contraction in the final quarter of this year. With political uncertainty set to persist for the foreseeable future, and investment and consumer spending likely to suffer in tandem, our December publication projects growth of just 0.7% in 2020.