China’s economic slowdown is rippling through Hong Kong, with the city’s retail sales rising at the slowest pace since 2009 as shoppers visiting from the mainland trimmed their spending. Sales climbed 11.4 percent in April from a year earlier, the government said in a statement on its website yesterday. That’s the smallest annual gain since October 2009, excluding January and February numbers distorted by the Lunar New Year holiday. The median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of economists was for a 16.4 percent increase. China’s economy is cooling as Premier Wen Jiabao extends a crackdown on speculation in the ... (full story)