The Social Security Fund (FSS) has announced that with the recovery of the global economy, its investments for the first half (1H) of 2023 recorded a return of about 4.5 billion patacas.
The statements came in response to the news Monday that the FSS investment funds in 2022 had made a loss of about 8 billion patacas.
The FSS also noted that “In 2022, the world was affected by a series of unfavorable factors such as the Russo-Ukrainian War and the Covid-19 pandemic,” which resulted in an unstable and complex macroeconomy.
The government entity explained that due to those factors, “the global stock and bond markets were severely impacted and went down simultaneously. However, entering 2023, with the recovery of investor confidence and global stock and bond markets, the FSS has recorded an overall investment return of about 4.5 billion patacas for the first half of the year.” It also added that the “cumulative overall investment return on the investments made over the past five years is about 15.6 billion patacas.”
As the Times reported in November 2022, several government investment funds recorded significant losses over the first half of 2022, a fact noted and reported by the Legislative Assembly Follow-up Committee for Public Finance Affairs.
In the same statement by the FSS, the entity also noted that there is no reason for alarm or speculation, noting that as of the first half of this year, “the total assets of the FSS were approximately 90 billion patacas, an increase from approximately 86.6 billion patacas at the end of 2022.”
Still, the FSS said it will continue to monitor the economic changes and optimize the investment portfolio based on the fund’s income and expenditure to “strive for a reasonable and stable long-term return, ensure financial stability, and enable the FSS to achieve long-term sustainable development.”
Bigger losses on Financial Reserve Investments
If the investments made through the FSS had a negative return in 2022 recording a loss of 8 billion patacas, an even worse outcome was seen from the investments made by the Macau Financial Reserve.
According to the figures published by the Monetary Authority of Macao (AMCM) in late February this year, those investments recorded a loss of some 20.75 billion patacas at the end of 2022.
The figure comes without much of a surprise since, as the Times reported in November 2022, the results of the first half of the year were already showing a loss that amounted to some 17.4 billion patacas.
At the end of 2022, the Financial Reserve accounts presented a total balance of 557.97 billion patacas.
According to the latest report on the topic published by the AMCM in the government’s official gazette last week, the financial reserve accounts have since, in the first half of 2023. recovered to a total balance of 565.76 billion patacas – that is, 7.79 billion patacas more than at the end of last year.
