Stealing Hong Kong's shopping thunder           

Many Hong Kongers are worrying that the glitz, glamour and gilding of the World Expo in Shanghai may be taking some of their shopping tourism thunder, but those in the know are saying it's not true.

"It definitely will have an impact on Hong Kong, because people from all over the country are pouring to Shanghai, but the impact won't be serious," Zhu Lianqin, director of commerce research department from the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times Tuesday.

But Caroline Mak Sui-king, chairwoman of the Retail Management Association in Hong Kong, told the South China Morning Post that many Hong Kong residents will take vacations to the World Expo in Shanghai and will be a major cause for concern in Hong Kong's retail market over the next six months.

Shanghai-based Shenyin and Wanguo Research, China's leading economic research company, estimated that the six-month Expo will bring Shanghai a profit increase of over 41.6 billion yuan ($6.1 billion) a month in the retail industry. Hong Kong's retail profits in March only weighed in at HK$24.7 billion ($3.2 billion).

Zhu added that Hong Kong's luxurious products and fashionable cosmetics are much cheaper than on the mainland and that many tourists would still choose Hong Kong. "So those who have planned to go to Hong Kong won't change their mind even if they go to Shanghai, and this number is much bigger than the small amount of travelers who take Shanghai and Hong Kong as an either-or scenario," said Zhu.

Leung King-wai, a Hong Kong resident who plans to visit the Expo in June, told the Global Times that, besides the Expo, her trip would be a sightseeing trip, not a shopping trip.

In 2009, the central government vowed to make Shanghai a financial center over the next decade, raising concerns that it would threaten Hong Kong's position as the free-market capital of the Asia-Pacific region.