Gov’t vows more diverse community spending promotion activities

The local government has reiterated that the ongoing 2026 Community Consumption Grand Rewards campaign aims to encourage residents to stay in Macau and spend their weekends locally, while pledging to explore more diverse community spending promotion activities.

Along with the launch of the 10-week campaign, legislator Wong Kit Cheng raised concerns that despite the authorities’ previous rounds of community spending incentives, the public continues to expect more measures to address diverse consumption habits and daily living needs, so that the concept of “investing in goods and investing in people” can be translated into concrete actions to promote domestic circulation and revitalize the local economy.

According to her written inquiry, data on electronic payment transaction volumes from January of this year indicates that consumer confidence remains weak, with spending on daily necessities such as supermarkets and footwear declining by 13.5% and 20.4%, respectively.

In response, the Economic and Technological Development Bureau (DSEDT) revealed that it is exploring a wider variety of community consumption promotion activities, with a focus on soliciting feedback from all sectors of society, reviewing the effectiveness of measures to boost community economic development, and collaborating with local chambers of commerce to launch and support various types of community economic initiatives.

As stated, these will incorporate specialty markets, consumer discounts, culinary experiences, retail, and cultural and creative elements to attract more residents and tourists to explore and spend in local communities.

Among these, 39 community tourism events are planned for this year, expected to attract over 1.86 million participants and involve more than 2,200 businesses.

The authorities also noted that the current “Senior Citizen Card” and “Disability Assessment Registration Card” discount schemes help alleviate financial pressures faced by the elderly and people with disabilities, with benefits covering public services, healthcare, daily living, shopping, dining, leisure, insurance, and financial planning.

Meanwhile, in a separate written inquiry, the lawmaker demanded the authorities’ response on improving the lottery probability allocation mechanism and reasonably distributing prize quotas across different time periods to increase winning chances for the ongoing Community Consumption Grand Rewards campaign.

She cited residents’ feedback that the winning rate has been less than satisfactory – a situation authorities previously attributed, during the previous campaign, to the increased number of participants, which naturally lowered the odds.