Hong Kong Q3 GDP grows slightly, beats estimates

[HONG KONG] Hong Kong's economy grew slightly in the third quarter from the second, beating expectations, despite a slowdown in China and weaker retail sales.

The economy grew a seasonally adjusted 0.9 per cent quarter-on-quarter in the three months to September, compared with a growth rate of 0.4 per cent in the second quarter and 0.7 per cent growth for the first quarter.

From a year earlier, the economy expanded 2.3 per cent in the third quarter, slower than 2.8 per cent growth in the second quarter.

Economists surveyed by Reuters expected the third quarter to grow 0.4 per cent from the second, and expand 1.8 per cent from a year earlier.

As a free and open economy on China's doorstep, Hong Kong's economy has long been vulnerable to external headwinds that now include a slowdown in the world's second-largest economy and broader uncertainty over US monetary policy, due to the city's currency peg to the dollar.

The Hong Kong government revised its economic growth forecast for 2015 to 2.4 per cent from 2-3 per cent.

REUTERS