Prosperous Macau SAR keeps growing
(China Daily HK Edition)
Updated: 2005-09-27 15:23

The economy of Macao has maintained a robust growth with a sustainable prosperity from the gaming and tourism industry.

Real GDP rose to 28%1 in 2004, reaching MOP80 billion. In this economic upturn, the unemployment rate last year declined to 4.8% and the Consumer Price Index rose by 1%, both are the best records attained since 1999.

The SAR Government of Macao has not only actively participated in internal economic development, but also reserve no effort in extending its economic cooperation with neighboring regions. The Mainland and Macao Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA), which has been implemented since 2004, has contributed positive effects to various fields of Macao's economy, especially in tourism sector.

In fact, free individual traveller provision alone has recorded a tremendous growth of visitors from Mainland China. Last year, the total number of arriving visitors soared to 40.3%, reach a record of 16.673 million visitors.

Visitors from Mainland China grew 66% to 9.53 million and this accounted for more than half of the total visitor, while 3.519 million of those were travelled under the individual travel scheme.

In 2004, there are 61 CEPA Certificates of Macao Origin were issued, under trade in goods, with a total export amount of MOP1.836 million and exempted import tariff by MOP162 thousand. Meanwhile, there are 21 qualified Macao enterprises obtaining a total of 182 Certificates of Macao Service Supplier to enjoy CEPA privileges in the Mainland services market.

With opportunities given by CEPA, 120 permanent residents of Macao are running the individually owned store in the province of Guangdong in 2004, with a total investment of RMB3.557 million. Moreover, the Mainland and SAR Government of Macao signed the Supplement to the CEPA on 29th October 2004, which further liberalized trade in goods and trade in services in the Mainland in favor of Macao as of 1st January 2005.

In this context, the number of goods with origin of Macao that can enjoy zero import tariff in Mainland has increased to 509 items (Mainland 2005 tariff codes). In addition to 11 liberalized sectors are further relaxed, 8 additional sectors are newly liberalized this year in trade in services with the total liberalized sectors therefore increase to 26.

In the external trade with a total export amount of MOP22.56 billion for the whole year of 2004, which represents an increase of 9%. As far as major merchandise in export is concerned, the export of textiles and garments grew 5% to MOP18.07 billion that accounted for 80.1% of total export. Total import soared by 26.3% to MOP27.9 billion, resulting in a trade deficit of MOP5.34 billion. Consumer goods, raw materials and semi-processed products were the major imports. Mainland China, the United States, the European Union, Japan and Hong Kong remain to be Macao's major trading partners.

Tourism ad gaming, manufacturing, finance and insurance, construction and real estate are the four pillars of Macao's economy, with tourism and gaming sector registering the strongest growth of all last year. The booming tourism industry led with 44% growth contributing to gaming tax of MOP15.24 billion. The robust economic growth and the construction of tourist and gaming facilities made advance contributions to the construction and real estate sector. Newly started building area registered a growth of 34.2% to 715 thousand square meters. The transactions of real estate were 27,823 units with a total value of MOP16.29 billion, up 50% and 81.4% respectively.

At the same time, the operating environment of finance and insurance sector improved too, as the growth of tourism and gaming sector and construction and real estate sector held firm. In 2004, the profits of banking industry amounted to MOP1.48 billion, up 52.9%.

The gross premium income of insurance industry also went up by 19.4% to MOP1.89 billion. The manufacturing sector was composed of 1,350 factories and 70,341 employees, an increase of 28 factories and 164 employees from 2003. The Zhuhai-Macao Cross Border Industrial Zone, which is expected to be in operation by the end of this year, is believed to contribute greatly to the diversification of Macao's industrial sector.

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