Business confidence of Hong Kong's small and medium enterprises fell to a seven-year low in the second quarter due to the coronavirus outbreak, a survey shows. The "Standard Chartered Hong Kong SME Leading Business Index" dropped by 6.9 percentage points to 26.2 in the second quarter from the first three months. All three major industry sub-indices fell in the second quarter, with the manufacturing industry recording the steepest drop. The manufacturing industry sub-index fell by 8 points quarter-on-quarter to 26.2, the retail industry declined by 4.8 points to 20.7, and the import/ export trade and wholesale industry sub-index were down 5.4 points to 25.2. Lau previously estimated that Hong Kong’s jobless rate is likely to reach 5.5 percent within the year before falling back to 5.2 percent at year-end.

Source: The Standard May 05, 2020 05:48 UTC