Tourism in trouble: Hong Kong demonstrations hit economy

Agencies
August 12, 2019

Hong Kong, Aug 12: Empty hotel rooms, struggling shops and even disruption at Disneyland: months of protests in Hong Kong have taken a major toll on the city's economy, with no end in sight.

City leader Carrie Lam has warned that the international financial hub is facing an economic crisis worse than either the 2003 SARS outbreak that paralysed Hong Kong or the 2008 financial crisis.

"The situation this time is more severe," she said. "In other words, the economic recovery will take a very long time."

The private sector, in particular the tourism industry, has begun counting the cost of more than two months of demonstrations that erupted in opposition to a bill allowing extraditions to China but have morphed into a broader pro-democracy movement.

The figures are stark: hotel occupancy rates are down "double-digit" percentages, as were visitor arrivals in July. Group tour bookings from the short-haul market have plunged up to 50 percent.

"In recent months, what has happened in Hong Kong has indeed put local people's livelihoods as well as the economy in a worrying, or even dangerous situation," warned Edward Yau, Hong Kong's secretary for commerce and economic development.

The city's tourism industry says it feels under siege.

"I think the situation is getting more and more serious," Jason Wong, chairman of the Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong, told AFP.

The impact is so bad that travel agents are considering putting staff on unpaid leave as they try to weather the storm, he warned.

Even Disneyland hit

Images of increasingly violent clashes between masked protesters and police firing tear gas in the city's streets have made global headlines, with protesters announcing new demonstrations throughout August as they press their demands.

A Hong Kong Tourism Board spokesperson told AFP that the number of forward bookings in August and September has "dropped significantly," suggesting the economic toll will linger throughout the summer season.

A string of travel warnings issued by countries including the United States, Australia and Japan is likely to compound the industry's woes.

The fall in arrivals has hurt Hong Kong's carrier Cathay Pacific, which was also forced to cancel flights this week during a general strike that caused chaos in the city.

And even Disneyland Hong Kong has been hit, with CEO Bob Iger telling reporters: "We have seen an impact from the protests."

"There's definitely been disruption. That has impacted our visitation there."

The retail sector has also been hit by the drop in arriving visitors hunting for bargains, shops often forced to shutter during the sometimes daily protests.

Experts say the crisis is compounding the economic downturn Hong Kong was already experiencing as a result of being caught up in the US-China trade war.

It's a "double whammy," warned Stephen Innes, Managing Partner of Valour Markets."

"We always take a view that oh, this too will pass. But so far that view is not holding any water... and now it seems like every weekend we're dealing with further escalations," he told AFP.

'Nastier than expected'

The property market, which fell over 20 percent during the 2008 financial crash, remains strong.

But Innes warned that the deepening crisis could result in capital outflows.

"All the money from the mainland that has propped up Hong Kong property markets could reverse as quickly as it flowed in," he said.

"This is getting a little bit nastier than any of us had expected."

The economic picture for the city was far from pretty even before the protests began, with growth shrinking from 4.6 percent to 0.6 percent year-on-year in the first quarter -- the worst quarterly performance in a decade.

Preliminary data suggests the second quarter fared no better, and while the government still hopes for 2-3 percent growth this year, predictions from major banks are more pessimistic.

Those falls reflect the effects of the US-China trade war on an economy that relies heavily on logistics processing and is vulnerable to a fall in trade.

The impact of the protests on growth will not be clear until later in the year, but Martin Rasmussen, China Economist at Capital Economics, said the crisis was likely to weigh heavily.

"In the beginning they were quite peaceful, you could say comparable to the protests back in 2014," he said, referring to pro-democracy Umbrella Movement in the city.

"Now they've become much more extreme, so we think the impact on the economy will begin to take its toll."

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Agencies
July 3,2020

The dollar's dominance will slowly melt away over the coming year on weakening global demand and a sombre U.S. economic outlook, according to a Reuters poll of currency forecasters whose views depend on there being no second coronavirus shock.

Despite fears a surge in new Covid-19 cases would delay economies reopening and stymie a tentative recovery, world stocks have rallied - with the S&P 500 finishing higher in June, marking its biggest quarterly percentage gain since the height of the technology boom in 1998.

Caught between bets in favour of riskier investments, weak U.S. economic prospects as well as an easing in the thirst for dollars after the Federal Reserve flooded markets with liquidity, the greenback fell nearly 1.0 per cent last month. It was its worst monthly performance since December.

While there was a dire prognosis from the top U.S. medical expert on the coronavirus' spread, the June 25-July 1 poll of over 70 analysts showed weak dollar projections as Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Monday reiterated the economic outlook for the world's largest economy was uncertain.

"The dollar rises in two instances: when you see risk off or when there is a situation where the U.S. is leading the global recovery, and we don't think that's going to be the case anytime soon," said Gavin Friend, senior FX strategist at NAB Group in London.

"The U.S. is playing fast and loose with the virus, and chronologically they're behind the rest of the world."

Currency speculators, who had built up trades against the dollar to the highest in two years during May, increased their out-of-favour dollar bets further last week, the latest positioning data showed.

About 80 per cent of analysts, 53 of 66, said the likely path for the dollar over the next six months was to trade around current levels, alternating between slight gains and losses in a range. That suggests the greenback may be at a crucial crossroad as more currency strategists have turned bearish.

But more than 90 per cent, or 63 of 68, said a second shock from the pandemic would push the dollar higher. Five said it would push the U.S. currency lower.

Much will also depend on debt servicing and repayments by Asian, European and other international borrowers in U.S. dollars.

While an early shortage of dollars in March from the pandemic's first shock pushed the Fed to open currency swap lines with major central banks, international funding strains have eased significantly since. In recent weeks, usage of the facility has reduced dramatically.

That trend is expected to continue over the next six months with major central banks' usage of swap lines to "stay around current levels", according to 32 of 46 analysts. While 13 predicted a sharp drop, only one respondent said use of them would "rise sharply".

The dollar index, which measures the greenback's strength against six other major currencies, has slipped over 5 per cent since touching a more than three-year high in March.

When asked which currencies would perform better against the dollar by end-December, a touch over half of 49 respondents said major developed market ones, with the remaining almost split between commodity-linked and emerging market currencies.

"The dollar is so overvalued, and has been overvalued for a long time, it's time now for it to come back down again, as we head towards the (U.S.) election," added NAB's Friend.

Over the last quarter, the euro has staged a 1.8 per cent comeback after falling by a similar margin during the first three months of the year. For the month of June, the euro was up 1.2 per cent against the dollar.

The single currency was now expected to gain about 2.5 per cent to trade at $1.15 in a year from around $1.12 on Wednesday, slightly stronger than $1.14 predicted last month. While those findings are similar to what analysts have been predicting for nearly two years, there was a clear shift in their outlook for the euro, with the range of forecasts showing higher highs and higher lows from last month.

"In comparison to even a month or two ago, the outlook in Europe has improved significantly," said Lee Hardman, currency strategist at MUFG.

"I think that makes the euro look relatively more attractive and cheap against the likes of the dollar. We're not arguing strongly for the euro to surge higher, we're just saying, after the weakness we have seen in recent years, there is the potential for that weakness to start to reverse."

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News Network
March 28,2020

Washington, Mar 27: The United States has seen a record 18,000 new confirmed coronavirus cases and 345 deaths over the past 24 hours, according to a Johns Hopkins University tracker.

There are now 97,028 declared virus cases in the country and there have been 1,475 deaths, Johns Hopkins said.

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News Network
July 26,2020

Seoul, Jul 26: North Korean authorities have imposed a lockdown on the border city of Kaesong after discovering what they called the country's first suspected case of the novel coronavirus, state media reported Sunday.

Leader Kim Jong Un convened an emergency politburo meeting on Saturday to implement a "maximum emergency system and issue a top-class alert" to contain the virus, official news agency KCNA said.

If confirmed, it would be the first officially recognised COVID-19 case in the North where medical infrastructure is seen as woefully inadequate for dealing with any epidemic.

KCNA said a defector who had left for the South three years ago returned on July 19 after "illegally crossing" the heavily fortified border dividing the countries.

But there have been no reports in the South of anyone leaving through what is one of the world's most secure borders, replete with minefields and guard posts.

Pyongyang has previously insisted not a single case of the coronavirus had been seen in the North despite the illness having swept the globe, and the country's borders remain closed.

The patient was found in Kaesong City, which borders the South, and "was put under strict quarantine", as would anybody who had come in close contact, state media said.

It was a "dangerous situation... that may lead to a deadly and destructive disaster", the media outlet added.

Kim was quoted as saying "the vicious virus could be said to have entered the country", and officials on Friday took the "preemptive measure of totally blocking Kaesong City".

The nuclear-armed North closed its borders in late January as the virus spread in neighbouring China and imposed tough restrictions that put thousands of its people into isolation, but analysts say the North is unlikely to have avoided the contagion.

South Korea is currently recording around 40 to 60 cases a day.

Earlier this month Kim warned against any "hasty" relaxation of anti-coronavirus measures, indicating the country will keep its borders closed for the foreseeable future.

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