Firstly, may I wish members and fellow retailers good health and prosperity in the Year of the Pig!

The Government released the latest retail sales figures for December 2018 and for the whole year of 2018. In December 2018, the growth rate further narrowed to 0.1%. Although the growth rate has decelerated for the second half of 2018, the total sales value still achieved 8.8% growth for 2018 as a whole, which is in line with the Association's earlier forecast of a high single-digit growth.

Entering 2019, since the Lunar New Year was in the first week of February, which was earlier than that in 2018, the Association expects a mild growth in sales value for January 2019. Combining January and February 2019, however, most of our member companies expected the sales performance to be the same as last year's.

Lastly, our annual Retail Summit, with the theme "Retail Reinvention: Success in the Disruptive Age", will be held on 17 May 2019 at Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. There will be over 20 heavyweight speakers from Nike, Lego Hong Kong, Alipay HK, GoGo Van, Zoff Hong Kong, Watsons, Hong Kong Airlines, Sa Sa Cosmetics, Apple Daily, Fairwood, Yue Hwa and TSL Jewellery, sharing their key success factors on retail transformations.

Please click here for registration, and don't miss the early-bird registration offer ending on 18 April.