Leanda Lee
The development of Macau is mainly reported through measures of growth in GDP, fiscal reserves, foreign reserves, tourism, Gross Gaming Revenue: all economic growth. Viewing GDP, Macau’s unquestionably a developed region. The Government reports a GDP per capita figure for 2013 of USD87,306. The World Development Indicators give Macau a slightly different current USD figure of 91,376, fourth after Luxembourg, Norway and Qatar. For reference, USA sat at USD53,042 per capita and Australia at USD67,458 that year. And now the Brookings Report ranks Macau as the world’s top-performing city in 2014. With a very low unemployment rate and stable society, Macau seems to have made it. On the economic statistics, we’re a developed nation.
The size of the economy is but one development indicator. GDP is indicative of the economic resources that are available to benefit the population – it tells us we have the money for the necessary infrastructure, education, health services, communication and transport. We forget that GDP is not the end goal. The presumption is that once the money is available that it will be spent to improve the quality of our lives. But having the resources is not the same as using them in a way that will ensure ongoing human progress. Wealth is not the defining element of this progress but is a necessary input.
The Happy Planet Index is alternative indicator of development and tests the assumption that GDP is actually being used to “deliver long, happy, sustainable lives.” The underlying question behind the HPI is whether a country can give us healthy and happy lives now and into the future. The index is a composite of three indicators: life expectancy, ecological footprint per capita and experienced well-being. The former two are objectively measurable indices regardless of where you measure them, but what is attractive about the measure of well-being is that it is subjective and dependent upon the values and needs of the local population. So, a devout Christian on a farm in the Philippines can have a different set of needs fulfilled to feel that sense of well-being from a hedonistic atheist living on the 31st floor of a Taipa apartment or an American casino executive driving monthly ROI.
On the ecology side, a google search on keywords “Macau” and “sustainability” brings out the positive side of Macau’s sustainability: sustainable development of casino destinations; sustainability of tourism development; PR blurbs on what gaming concessionaires are doing about environmental sustainability; hotel sustainability awards and star ratings; sustainability reports from utility companies. To be fair, a number of scientific studies undertaken by our tertiary institutions are also represented, reporting on the levels of pollutants through descriptive measurements and simulation. Most articles highlight the need to lower the environmental cost of economic productivity.
A simulator study by a group of Chinese and Macau scientists, funded by Science and Technology Development Fund of Macau estimates that Macau’s ecological footprint per capita was 4.23 global hectares in 2010. Since WWF says that the global average is 2.7 gha per capita and the world can only sustain 1.7gha per capita, Macau’s not living within its environmental limits either in terms of the global average or long term sustainability.
Macau stood 4th on global GDP per capita, but where does it stand on the Happy Planet Index? We’re missing. Neither are we included in the World Happiness Report 2013, nor the 2014 Pew Research Global Attitudes Project but we can make an informed estimate using some proxy data. The Macau Polytechnic Institute and the Macau Economic Association ran a survey with a similar question on happiness as used in the HPI, giving Macau a score of 6.98 out of 10 in 2012. And in 2012 we had a life-expectancy of 80.13 years. Adding our 4.23 gha ecological footprint and crunching the numbers, Macau gets a Happy Planet Index of 50.2 at 33rd place, not far from Norway in 29th place. But with countries like Thailand and Vietnam ahead of us, there’s still more in terms of human development for Macau to achieve.
In comparison to China, Macau has better life expectancy, better happiness but a poorer ecological footprint. By adding Hengqin to the equation, as has been recommended by some of our scientists, that dirty number will change. After all, that which gets measured, gets managed.
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