F&B sector reports rise in receipts

27% of the restaurants & similar establishments that were interviewed reported a year-on-year rise in receipts in November, a growth of 15 percentage points from October, data from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) shows.

Receipts rose year-on-year for 31% of Chinese Restaurants and 27% of Western Restaurants by 22 percentage points and 19 percentage points, respectively. The proportion of retailers interviewed that recorded a year-on-year sales rise in November rose 20 percentage points over the preceding month to 37%.

The Business Performance Index (BPI), which reflects trends of year-on-year changes in business receipts, the values for restaurants & similar establishments (38.4) and retail trade (46.1) were both below 50, indicating that the business performance of these two industries in November was less satisfactory than the same month last year.

Regarding expectations among businesses for December, 89% of restaurants & similar establishments interviewed expected their receipts to increase month-on-month or remain stable, up by 3 percentage points from November.

Likewise, reported positive outlook among Western Restaurants (92%) and Chinese Restaurants (95%) was 15 percentage points and 9 percentage points higher respectively, while the share of optimistic Local Style Cafes, Congee & Noodle Shops (78%) dropped by 4 percentage points. 92% of the retailers interviewed predicted that their sales would increase month-on-month or remain stable in December, a growth of 4 percentage points from the preceding month.

The sample size for the survey was 229 restaurants & similar establishments and 161 retailers, which in 2019 accounted for 53.5% and 70.6% of the receipts in each respective industry.  LV