Half a year on from pro-democracy protests that gripped Hong Kong for weeks, the city's economy is-depending on your perspective-beginning to suffer the fallout or sailing along as if nothing much happened. A tale of two property markets sheds light on this. At one end of the spectrum are retail spaces. Hammered since the unrest by a slowdown in the growth of visits from the mainland, shop rents are expected to fall by as much as 20% this year. At the other end are offices. Buoyed by a series of new financial links with the mainland, vacancies in Hong Kong's forest of glass-and-steel towers are at their lowest since the onset of the global financial crisis. The common thread is evident: more than at any point since the end of British rule in 1997, Hong Kong's economic fate depends on mainland China.
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