Hong Kong restaurants in need of break as rents rise
- Closures call for return of cooperation between landlords and tenants that helped save small businesses during Covid-19 pandemic
Many Hong Kong restaurants and other small businesses owed their survival during the pandemic at least partly to landlords who granted rent holidays or relief. Landlords and tenants jointly bore the cost to business income of Covid-19 measures such as social distancing.
They were in a sense investing in ultimate economic recovery and a return to good times.
They did not anticipate that the good times would not return overnight once the all-clear was given, amid a halting economic recovery that saw year-on-year declines in the value of retail sales by 14.7 per cent and 11.5 per cent in April and May, respectively.
But many landlords were quick to raise rents, putting tenants under pressure. A case in point is the setback suffered by mainland retail brands that were hoping to expand in Hong Kong.
Several food and beverage chains have also ended prime-location tenancies, blaming sky-high rents and fierce competition.