Retail, restaurants squeeze persists into second quarter

The general business performance of the restaurant sector has seen a continued drop in March 2019, with some 36% of the establishments surveyed recording a year-on- year decline in revenue, the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) informed in a statement.

The data comes from the business survey on restaurants and similar establishments and retail trade for March 2019.

According to the same statement, despite the fall in March, a 3% increase in sales was registered compared to the previous month of February this year.

The same statement also noted that the food and beverage establishment experiencing the greatest declines were the local style cafes and congee and noodle shops, which registered drops of 17% year-on-year, while the Japanese and Korean restaurants and the Western- style restaurants registered increases of 13% and 11%, respectively.

The survey found mixed results regarding retail sales. While 45% of the interviewed retailers reporting a year-on-year decrease in sales, that proportion represented a drop of 24 percentage points from the previous month.

Those retailers reporting the worst performance were involved in adults’ clothing and watches, clocks, and jewelry, declining by 30% and 28% respectively.
However, 35% of the interviewed retailers registered a year-on-year sales increase in March, up by 17% from February. Topping this list are the supermarkets, which surged by 45 percentage points.

In fact, only the supermarkets and leather goods retailers have recorded year-on-year sales increases or steady performance, while most of the other business sectors reported losses.

Forecasting the results for April, the interviewees from the restaurants and similar establishments sector do not expect better results, with a large majority of those interviewed (68%) reporting that they anticipated a drop of another 5% from March.

Meanwhile, the retailers expected their sales to be stable in April, with the same percentage of interviewed establishments (68%) anticipating their sales to increase year- on-year by an average of about 4% from March.  RM