MACAO, April 24 (Xinhua) -- The business performance of restaurants and retail trade in China's Macao weakened in February 2019 due to the buoyant sales in January prior to the Chinese Lunar New Year in early February, the special administrative region's statistic service said here on Wednesday.

A latest business climate survey report from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that there were 33 percent of the interviewed restaurants reporting a year-on-year decline in revenue in February, up by 12 percentage points from January.

On the other hand, 34 percent of the interviewed restaurants registered a year-on-year increase in revenue, a drop of 14 percentage points from January.

For retail trade, the proportion of interviewed retailers recording a year-on-year sales decrease in February surged by 32 percentage points from January to 69 percent, due to the buoyant sales in January before the Lunar New Year, and a higher base of comparison resulting from the Lunar New Year that fell in mid-February last year.

Meanwhile, only 18 percent of the interviewed retailers recorded a year-on-year sales rise in February, a decrease of 30 percentage points from January.

The DSEC report said that the interviewed restaurants expected their business to slacken further in March, with 55 percent of them anticipating their revenue to remain stable year-on-year and 30 percent forecasting a decrease in revenue, up by 5 percentage points and 4 percentage points from February respectively.

However, retailers were still cautious about their business prospects in March, with 64 percent of them anticipating their sales to increase year-on-year or remain steady, down slightly by 1 percentage point from February.