【明報專訊】A SURVEY FINDING and a sales figure released yesterday (March 3) have suddenly sobered Hongkongers up amid the little Chinese New Year atmosphere that remains. The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a UK think tank, again listed Hong Kong as one of the ten most expensive cities in the world. The Census and Statistics Department announced that the total value of goods retailers sold in January this year is $46.6 billion, down 14.6% on the same period in the previous year. That is the heaviest year-on-year drop since the SARS outbreak (April 2003). To retailers, which have kept thriving over the past decade, the 2015 spring is particularly chilly. The chill will remain, and things are hardly optimistic this year.