Restaurants in Hong Kong reported the largest annual decline in combined incomes last year as the catering sector took the major brunt of the COVID-19 epidemic, official data showed Thursday.
Restaurant receipts plummeted 29.4 percent from a year ago to 79.4 billion Hong Kong dollars (about 10 billion U.S. dollars) in 2020, according to the Census and Statistics Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government.
Bars were hit the hardest with incomes slumping 47.9 percent from 2019. Chinese restaurants saw their incomes down by 38.2 percent, and fast food shops earned 19.1 percent less than a year ago.
In the fourth quarter, total receipts of the restaurant sector went down 25.1 percent year-on-year to 19.5 billion Hong Kong dollars.
A government spokesman said the business environment of restaurants will stay challenging in the near term as the fourth wave of local epidemic continued to hit dining-out activities while inbound tourism remained at a standstill.
Taking the epidemic under control is pivotal to the recovery of the sector, he said, adding that the government will monitor the developments closely.
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