HONG KONG, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- The receipts of Hong Kong's restaurants sector in the third quarter were worth 19.9 billion HK dollars (2.6 billion U.S. dollars), down 0.5 percent year on year, according to provisional statistics released Monday.

    The value of restaurant purchases also decreased by 2.6 percentto 6.9 billion HK dollars (884.6 million U.S. dollar), the Census and Statistics Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government announced.

    After netting out the effect of price changes, total restaurant receipts fell by 1.2 percent year on year in volume in the third quarter.

    The receipts of bars decreased by 1.5 percent in value in the third quarter, compared with a decrease of 1.3 percent by value for the Chinese restaurants and an increase of 0.5 percent for miscellaneous eating and drinking places.

    Fast food shops recorded a year-on-year value increase of 1.8 percent in the third quarter.

    On a seasonally adjusted quarter-to-quarter comparison, the volume of total restaurant receipts increased by 1.3 percent in the third quarter as compared with the second quarter.

    For the first three quarters as a whole, total restaurant receipts edged up 0.1 percent year on year in value but decreased 1.8 percent in volume.

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