The forecasted size of the Macau gaming industry should be around 25% of the total Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the Chief Executive (CE), Ho Iat Seng said yesterday at the Legislative Assembly (AL).
The CE was at the AL for a Q&A session with the lawmakers on the policy address for this year. Responding to lawmaker Lei Chan U on the perceived results of the economic diversification, he said, “[in the future] MICE and gaming cannot be below 40% of the GDP, because most of our [government] receipts come from these sectors,” a statement that, together with the previously-mentioned intention that MICE can represent a share of around 15%, placed the gaming industry share at about 25%.
Reviewing the figures for 2020 and 2021, Ho noted the gaming sector contributed some 21.3% of GDP in 2020. This share increased to 28% last year, he said, hinting again that such a size is “ideal” for Macau’s intention of being less reliant on this industry.
Ho also mentioned that the Hotels and Restaurant industry together could only reach some 2.7%, a percentage similar to the figure for the industrial sector (2.3%), but, “We need to understand that these [hotels and restaurants] are the sectors that hire more staff and that can easily help to solve the unemployment rate.”
Also growing significantly in 2021 was the Retail sector which recovered from 6.9% in 2020 to over 10% last year. Nonetheless, the CE sees an added potential for this sector to represent at least 15% of GDP.
Already representing around 15% was the banking and insurance sector which was accountable for a 14.5% share in 2021, but Ho said this was not enough.
“The banking and insurance sector figure of 15% is not that high. We did a forecast and we see that we can reach more than that. Also, if we make an extra effort, the retail sector can also reach more than 15%. We are already forecasting this for 2023 and 2024.”
The CE also noted that the times when the gaming industry represented some 65% of Macau’s GDP are gone and are unlikely to return.
“The gaming sector share was 65% back in 2013 and 2014, but this was not healthy. With the distribution we are planning for the five main sectors, we can effectively diversify. Of course, we can see that [income from gaming] taxes collected was much higher, but we need healthy development in line with our country.”
“We are well aware that the taxes collected [from other sectors] are low and that we cannot push them to pay more as they cannot support that, but we also know that with only around 20% (from gaming) we can basically cover all our [government] expenses. The goal is very clear,” the CE concluded.
