Luxury brand Louis Vuitton is closing a major store in a high-end Hong Kong shopping center often targeted by protesters.
The international retailer plans to shut its shop in the financial hub's Times Square mall after its landlord, Wharf Real Estate Investment Corporation, refused to lower the rent, according to the local media South China Morning Post's report Friday.
The store, one of the brand's eight shopfronts in the city, is in the commercial heartland of Causeway Bay and occupies 10,000 square feet of prime second-floor space in the mall.
Monthly rent reportedly costs an estimated 5 million Hong Kong dollars (642,000 U.S. dollars), according to industry consultants.
The news of the potential closure came after the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government released its latest retail sales figures, posting its tenth consecutive monthly drop in November 2019 and striking a year-on-year decline of over 23 percent.
Read more: Hong Kong's November retail sales down 23.6%
Jewelry, watches, clocks and luxury gifts formed the most seriously hit category, with a year-on-year plunge of 43.5 percent.
The government blamed violent protests for disrupting tourism and affecting sentiment for consumption.
The Times Square mall has been a popular target of "Shop With You" rallies, in which protesters gather to chant slogans and march, hoping to force shops to close down and impose economic pressure on the government.
In the third quarter last year, LVMH, the parent group of Louis Vuitton, reported a better-than-expected overall performance but a sales revenue drop of 25 percent in Hong Kong.
According to the latest figures released by the Hong Kong Tourism Board, only 2.65 million people visited in November 2019, a decline of 56 percent from the same period last year.
Hong Kong has been battered by protests for seven months, which from time to time have developed into violent clashes.
