Shoppers camp overnight for Hong Kong expo’s HK$1 dishwasher, as leader Carrie Lam drops in for noodles
Chief executive, fresh from visit to Beijing, is guest at annual Brands and Products Expo in Victoria Park, where traders are offering huge discounts
Organisers and exhibitors at this year’s annual Brands and Products Expo were predicting double-digit growth for the 24-day sales extravaganza as it opened to eager shoppers with huge discounts on Saturday.
Hardcore shoppers camped outside Victoria Park for over 20 hours on Friday and into Saturday for a chance to nab electronics and other discounted items for as little as HK$1 at the opening of the event.
The buoyant predictions for the fair come amid a bull run in Hong Kong’s retail sector, which has seen eight consecutive months of growth. October, the latest month for which official figures are available, saw the industry expand by 3.9 per cent on the same period last year on the back of strong tourist numbers.
Even Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, who had just landed in the city on Saturday morning after a duty visit to Beijing, got in on the expo action. She was an official guest and spent about HK$5,550 on packaged food items including shrimp roe noodles, dried sausages and bacon.
Citing a favourable economic environment, some major exhibitors said they expected to see growth in their business of at least 10 per cent compared to last year’s expo.
