Dozens of shops including fashion chain Zara and drugstore Mannings have been shuttered in what used to be a hustle-and-bustle shopping mall popular with mainland Chinese visitors in Hong Kong’s northwestern New Territories as the COVID-19 pandemic batters sales.

Located close to the border with Shenzhen, Tuen Mun Town Plaza was once crowded with local shoppers and mainland Chinese tourists.

The lines of suitcases that the tourists typically brought with them to haul their goods back home have vanished as COVID-19 batters the city’s tourism and retail industries.

Mannings recently shut one of its two outlets at the mall developed by Sino Group due to dwindling numbers of customers, a visit by Apple Daily reporters found last month.

Zara, one of the world’s largest apparel chains, also ended its 10-year operation in the mall with the closure of its 25,000 square-foot outlet there. Zara opened the shop in 2011 around the same time its rival H&M moved in.

The Swedish apparel chain was among about half of the tenants still operating on the UG level, alongside AEON department store and Starbucks. H&M earlier said it would close the Tuen Mun outlet in February this year but later retracted the plan.

On the second floor, at least 20 shops have been closed, including local apparel chain I.T. and sportswear chain Wan Kee, Apple Daily found.

As of the end of June, the occupancy rate of the 1.1 million square-foot mall was 96%, 1.2 percentage points down from the same period a year earlier, according to Sino Group’s annual report. The developer hadn’t responded to Apple Daily’s request for updated numbers by the time of publication.

A resident of Tuen Mun, surnamed Cheung, told Apple Daily that the crowds of mainland Chinese shoppers had disappeared from Tuen Mun and Sheung Shui amid the COVID-19 outbreaks. Another resident said she was concerned many would lose their jobs after shops closed.

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