Asia Pacific retail bouyed on consumer confidence

While the forecast is for positive expansion across all the 12 Asia/Pacific markets, China maintains its lead with retail sales anticipated to reach 4743 billion yuan, representing a 12.8 per cent year on year growth. Other markets with strong growth include Indonesia (12.6 per cent against 4.6 per cent in the first half of 2007) and Hong Kong (10.5 per cent against 3.2 per cent in the first half of 2007), both observing a significant increase in the year on year growth rate of 8 per cent and 7.3 per cent respectively when compared to the same period last year.

 Retail sales in Thailand are expected to grow 4.7 per cent.

 "The global economic turmoil will inevitably affect Asia in 2008, however. The real test is to what extent Asian economies will be able to continue to drive growth with domestic demand; and thereby maintaining a steady pace of healthy retail sales," observes Yuwa Hedrick Wong, economic advisor, MasterCard Worldwide.

- The Nation