Hong Kong's economy grows slightly in Q2, staves off recession

Hong Kong's economy grew slightly in the second quarter even amid a slowdown in exports, tourism and a weak property market, staving off a possible mild recession. The city's fortunes are closely tied to China, the mainstay of its economy, and slowing Chinese growth and dwindling visitors from the mainland have hit retailers and exporters hard.
Gross domestic product grew a seasonally-adjusted 1.6 percent in the second quarter from the first, and 1.7 percent from a year earlier, the government said. The economy was forecast to have expanded at an average annual pace of 1.03 percent in the second quarter by three economists with year-on-year estimates surveyed by Reuters, an improvement from the first quarter's 0.8 percent. The government revised January-March GDP to minus 0.5 percent quarter-on-quarter, the first contraction in nearly two years. Hong Kong's economy grew 2.4 percent in 2015. The government kept its 2016 GDP growth forecast unchanged at 1-2 percent. The government said in a statement that while an improving US economy could provide some "support to Hong Kong's goods exports", the UK's vote to leave the European Union continued to pose global economic and financial risks.