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Say No to “Burning Together”

According to the latest revised Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures released by the Census and Statistics Department, the economy contracted by 2.9% year-on-year in the third quarter. This is the first year-on-year decline in a decade, and also the fastest deceleration in the past six quarters. With exports already hampered by the challenging external environment, the worsening social unrest has added significant downward pressures to the economy. A rough estimation was that over 2 percentage points of the negative economic growth of 2.9% in the third quarter was due to the direct and serious impacts on sectors such as retail, catering and hotel.

Hong Kong has entered a recession. With reference to the quarter-to-quarter comparison of GDP, Hong Kong has experienced two consecutive quarters of contraction. The decline widened from 0.5% in the second quarter to 3.2% in the third quarter, marking the worst quarter in a decade and second only to the 3.4% negative growth in the first quarter of 2009. If the quarter-to-quarter decline widens significantly further in this quarter, it will be the weakest quarter since 1997.

What is worrying is that demonstrations have become increasingly violent and frequent entering the fourth quarter, significantly deterring visitors, taking a heavy toll on local consumption demand and seriously dampening economic and investment sentiments. The data showed that visitor arrivals still fell by over 40% in October and the first 10 days of November. Retail sales volume fell sharply by 19.5% year-on-year in the third quarter. While October figure is still being compiled, observations from the trade suggested that retail sales performance has worsened further, possibly posting the largest decline in sales volume on record. The business situation of the catering industry has also become more severe.

The increasing pressures facing the economy have affected the labor market. The unemployment rate in consumption- and tourism-related sectors has risen visibly to 5%, and the outlook is not optimistic. Although the overall employment situation was broadly stable with the unemployment rate only edging up to 2.9% in the third quarter, I have mentioned many times that the unemployment rate is a lagging indicator. If the overall economy, especially private consumption expenditure, continues to weaken significantly, the unemployment rate may surge within a short period of time.

As the drag on the economy due to the local social incidents in the fourth quarter is expected to be larger than that in the third quarter, the Government has lowered its economic growth forecast for 2019 as a whole from 0 to 1% in the previous round to -1.3%. This would be the first annual negative growth forecast since 2009.

Facing the weakening economy, any strikes will only add insult to injury and make it more difficult for the workforce to earn a living. Some rioters even tried to “force” the public to go on strike by blocking main roads. This is a very selfish and irresponsible behavior as it brought not only inconvenience but also safety threat to commuters. Many people in the past few days had to spend hours or more on commuting, and some even could not get back to home. These large-scale roadblocks and serious damages to transport infrastructures also affected the operations of hospital, clinics and schools, etc.

In addition, railways and carriages were severely burned by arson, and patrol bombs were thrown on cars and passenger carriages. Citizens attempting to clear roadblocks were attacked and threatened by objects thrown from height, bows and arrows, and petrol bombs. What is even more tragic was the passing away of a 70-year-old outsourced cleaning service contractor worker of the Food & Environmental Hygiene Department suspected to have been hit on the head by a hard object hurled by rioters. These serious violent and illegal acts are directly endangering the lives of innocent citizens and eroding Hong Kong’s long-term treasured values of civility and rationality. Such acts are close to terrorism.

The whole of society is being swallowed up by violence and hatred. It has also led Hong Kong to an extremely dangerous situation. No excuse can justify violence. The need for severing ties with violence has become more important than ever.

I am touched by the scenes of people going on streets to clear roadblocks. This is a silent but solid force in the society, from people who do not want to see the situation continues to deteriorate and are willing to contribute to their beloved city.

Many Hong Kong people are feeling trapped and powerless by the chaotic and disorderly situation of the society. It is totally not acceptable to impose one’s will on others and attacking people and shops of different views under the flag of “democracy”. If we justify violence as the pursuit of “justice and democracy”, it will be akin to terrorism.

Stopping violence and restoring order is the top priority of the Government. We will strengthen inter-departmental coordination to tackle the current difficulties, including coordination of work and dissemination of information, in order to step up our efforts. What we need as well is support from the public. We have now come to a critical crossroads, and how Hong Kong will move on is in our hands.

November 17, 2019