Many sectors expect a favorable business outlook for the first quarter of the year, particularly the financing and insurance field, followed by the retail and the real estate industries, according to a survey released by Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government on Friday. Up to 29 percent of respondents forecast their business situation to improve while only 10 percent expected it to worsen, compared with 17 percent in the fourth quarter last year, according to the Census and Statistics Department's Quarterly Business Tendency Survey. Respondents also expect a rise in their volume of business output, particularly in the financing and insurance, retail, real estate, and professional and business services sectors. More respondents in the financing and insurance, real estate, construction, retail, and transportation, storage and courier services sectors expect an employment increase in the first quarter this year. However, more respondents in the manufacturing sector expect a fall. There were more respondents in the real estate, financing and insurance, and import-export trade and wholesale sectors expecting their selling prices or service charges to rise in the first quarter, than those expecting it to fall. 