Hong Kong in recession after protests deal 'comprehensive blow'

Hong Kong’s financial secretary has said the region
is in recession after more than five months of anti-government protests, and
said it was unlikely to achieve annual economic growth this year.
“The blow to our economy is comprehensive,” Paul
Chan said in a blog post on Sunday, adding that figures out on Thursday would
show two successive quarters of contraction – the technical definition of a
recession.
“The government will be announcing its advance
estimates for the third quarter on Thursday. After seeing negative growth in
the second quarter, the situation continued in the third quarter, meaning our
economy has entered technical recession,” he wrote.
“It seems it will be extremely difficult for us to
reach full-year economic growth of 0 to 1%. I would not rule out the
possibility that the full-year economic growth will be negative.”
Protests in the former British colony have reached
their 21st week. On Sunday, black-clad and masked demonstrators set fire to
shops and threw petrol bombs at police who responded with tear gas, water
cannon and rubber bullets.
Protesters have routinely torched shops and
businesses including banks, particularly those owned by mainland Chinese
companies, and vandalised the city’s metro system MTR Corp because they view it
as acting at the government’s behest to curtail protests.
Tourists numbers have plummeted, a decline Chan
called an “emergency” with the drop in visitor numbers worsening in October,
down nearly 50%.
Retail operators, from prime shopping malls to
family businesses, have been forced to close for days over the past few months.
While authorities have announced measures to support
local small and medium sized enterprises, Chan said the measures could only
“slightly reduce the pressure”.
“Let citizens return to normal life, let industry
and commerce to operate normally, and create more space for rational dialogue,”
he wrote.
Protesters are angry about increasing interference
by Beijing in Hong Kong, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under a “one
country, two systems” formula intended to guarantee freedoms not seen on the
mainland.
China denies meddling. It has accused foreign
governments, including the United States and Britain, of stirring up trouble.