Official figures show China's population declined by a further two million last year. It started falling for the first time in more than 60 years in 2022. The National Bureau of Statistics said the number of births fell by about half-a-million last year to just over nine million while more people died. The data also confirmed economic growth of 5.2 percent for the full year. Wang Dan, chief economist at Hang Seng Bank (China), told Chloe Feng that she believed the GDP growth was a reasonable and "hard-won" result:

The nation's youth unemployment rate has plunged from a historic high seen last summer. It comes after authorities started releasing the metric again after a months-long pause. Chloe Feng reports:

Hong Kong stocks have plunged to their lowest level in 14 months with the Hang Seng Index giving up 3.7 percent and the Tech Index retreating by nearly 5 percent at the close on Wednesday. James Wong, chief executive of Cathaysia Securities, says China's decline in GDP data for the past three quarters spooked markets and raised fears that a contraction for the economy could be around the corner. He spoke to Samantha Butler:

The housing minister says the property market is in a phase of consolidation and not in decline. She was commenting after prices saw a month-on-month drop of two percent in November. Damon Pang reports:

The government says a planned move to increase the number of surveillance cameras in the SAR will help police officers monitor crime. Vanessa Cheng reports:

The city’s antitrust watchdog says funeral homes were among 13 places they raided over suspected price fixing for funeral services. Aaron Tam reports:

An official overseeing the pay-as-you-throw scheme has discouraged building managers from buying large designated rubbish bags on behalf of its residents. Violet Wong reports:

A former senior executive of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper has told court that his former boss, Jimmy Lai, gave instructions to use the paper to call for protests and seek foreign support in 2019. Cheung Kim-hung was testifying as the first accomplice witness in the national security trial of the former media tycoon. Frank Yung reports:

The Centre for Food Safety says three types of imported cereal products may have been contaminated by Salmonella, a pathogen which causes food poisoning and can sometimes be fatal. It said the importer had stopped sales and a recall was underway in line with the centre's instructions. Robert Kemp reports:

An annual study has found that Hong Kong has regained some of its shine for expatriates in the past year after Covid restrictions were cancelled. Consultancy firm, ECA International, says the SAR rose 15 places to 77th in its global liveability rankings. Its general manager for Asia, Mark Harrison, told Violet Wong that Hong Kong was still a very attractive destination, especially in Asia:

The Institute of Certified Public Accountants (CPA) has called on the government to include the accounting profession into its Talent List, saying there is a need to import workers to tackle a serious manpower crunch in the industry. Accountancy-sector lawmaker, Edmund Wong, agrees that more needs to be done to bring in fresh talent. He said professionals from the mainland and abroad should be quite interested in coming to the SAR. He told Georgina Lee why there was such a serious shortage of labour in the industry:

Hong Kong people could find themselves sheltering from storms called Milk Tea and Dim Sum in future, after the Observatory announced the result of a poll on new typhoon names. Natale Ching reports:

In this week's arts and culture podcast, Broad Strokes has a taste of musical genres from experimental DIY punk, to groove-based jazz, and to contemporary classical pieces. Ben Tse and Priscilla Ng find out more about the Shanghai-based punk rockers, Round Eye, returning to Hong Kong, and a regional jazz fusion super group’s mini tour of the city: