China Shoppers Sling a Gucci ‘Lifeline’ to Hong Kong Economy

Queuing outside a Louis Vuitton shop in Hong Kong, Lin Shasha says she’s visiting from Shenzhen to buy leather belts and handbags because the products are genuine and her yuan goes further.

Lin, 30, is among the millions of Chinese visitors driving a retail-sales boom in Hong Kong even as weakness in global demand threatens to tip the city into its second recession in three years. A 25 percent increase in sales for the first seven months was the biggest since data began in 1981, the statistics department said in an e-mail yesterday.