The line chart illustrates the number of shops that went out of business and the number of newly opened shops from 2011 to 2018.
Overall, while both categories exhibited a downward trend, the number of shop closures experienced more significant fluctuations. Moreover, shop closures generally outnumbered openings during the first half of the period, although this was not the case in the later years.
In the period from 2011 to 2014, the figures for these two categories showed a similar trend. The number of shop closures decreased from approximately 6,500 in the first year to around 6,000, before increasing again and returning to its initial level by 2014. In contrast, the number of new shop openings plunged from about 8,500 in 2011 to approximately 4,000 in 2012, but then rebounded significantly to over 6,000 by 2014.
In the later period, the number of shop closures dropped dramatically to below 1,000 in 2015, then surged to over 5,000 the following year, before stabilizing at this level for the remainder of the period. As for the statistics on shop openings, they fell to exactly 4,000 in 2015 and remained stagnant at this number for two years, before decreasing further to 3,000 in 2018.