Rents plunge on HK street that was world's priciest strip

Hong Kong

COSMETICS retailer Colourmix will move to Hong Kong's Russell Street, once the world's most expensive shopping strip, and pay about 40 per cent less than the former tenant as China's economic slowdown rattles the city.

"Landlords have to face the reality, no matter how reluctant they are," Lawrence Wong, a director at property agent Sheraton Valuers Ltd, said in a telephone interview on Saturday. "It's still better than leaving their property empty." Russell Street has lost its claim as the most expensive shopping street on the planet to New York's Fifth Avenue, according to broker Cushman & Wakefield Inc in November. A July research report by Jones Lang LaSalle predicted prices for space in prime locations will drop 15 per cent to 20 per cent in Hong Kong this year.