HONG KONG: Hong Kong confirmed on Monday it plunged into recession in 2019, suffering its first annual contraction in a decade as the city buckled under the twin pressures of the US-China trade war and months of furious pro-democracy protests.

The data was released as the semi-autonomous city begins the lunar new year facing another economic crisis — the outbreak of a deadly new coronavirus strain which began on the Chinese mainland and is compounding Hong Kong's economic woes.