Business climate survey on restaurants & similar establishments and retail trade for August 2021

Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that the business performance of both restaurants & similar establishments and retail trade in August 2021 was affected as local confirmed cases of coronavirus infection were reported at the beginning of the month. There were 33% of the interviewed restaurants & similar establishments reporting a year-on-year rise in receipts in August, a drop of 31 percentage points from July; the corresponding proportions of Western Restaurants (19%), Chinese Restaurants (39%) and Japanese & Korean Restaurants (12%) declined by 42 percentage points, 36 percentage points and 35 percentage points respectively. Meanwhile, the proportion of interviewed retailers recording a year-on-year sales rise in August (66%) went down by 16 percentage points over the preceding month; the corresponding proportions of Cosmetics & Sanitary Articles Retailers (36%) and Department Stores (50%) fell by 55 percentage points and 25 percentage points from July respectively, while the shares of Motor Vehicle Retailers (46%) and Supermarkets (56%) grew by 16 percentage points and 11 percentage points. For the Business Performance Index (BPI) that reflects the trend of year-on-year changes in business receipts, the value for restaurants & similar establishments (41.9) was lower than 50 in August, indicating that the business performance of the industry was less satisfactory compared to the same month last year. On the other hand, the BPI for retail trade (71.0) was higher than 50, implying that the business of the industry fared better than in August last year.
…