Hong Kong saw a robust visitor inflow during the Chinese mainland’s eight-day National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival “golden week”, with 877,000 passenger trips by mainland tourists in the first four days -- up more than seven percent from last year -- while overseas tourist arrivals jumped by over 30 percent year-on-year to 126,000, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po said in his Sunday blog.
The momentum echoes a long-awaited strong resurgence of the special administrative region’s retail sector. Retail sales in August advanced by 3.8 percent to HK$30.3 billion ($3.9 billion) in the fourth consecutive month of growth and the largest rise in 20 months. About 80 percent of retailers surveyed expect higher sales during the holidays from Oct 1-8, with some anticipating double-digit growth.
As Hong Kong’s efforts to boost its mega-events economy efforts to continue to pay off, Chan said the city, with a packed events calendar, still has more to offer by yearend.
Traditional and signature attractions like the Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance during the Mid-Autumn Festival and the Hong Kong Wine & Dine Festival -- with extended closing hours until midnight for the first time -- are magnets for tourists.
Major upcoming events, including next month’s 15th National Games and various Christmas celebrations, will further stimulate local spending.
The finance chief also highlighted a series of high-profile business gatherings -- from November’s Global Financial Leaders’ Investment Summit and Hong Kong FinTech Week to December’s Business of Design Week -- that will attract high-spending, high-value business visitors, creating a boon for the retail, catering and hospitality sectors.
“The SAR government will continue to work with different industries to strengthen synergies among these major events, aiming to maximize their economic impact,” he said.
Beyond tourism and retail, a new batch of strategic enterprise agreements will be signed this week, welcoming more than a dozen major companies to establish or expand their operations in the SAR, Chan said. Among them are three of the world’s top 10 pharmaceutical firms and, for the first time, creative and cultural enterprises integrating innovation and technology, reflecting one of the key development directions laid out in this year’s Budget.
With this latest batch, the number of strategic enterprises coming to Hong Kong through the Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises will exceed 100, reinforcing the city’s push for high-value industries and global investment as part of its industrial upgrading and economic transformation strategy.
Contact the writer at sophialuo@chinadailyhk.com
