Group expects 1H GDP to rise 70% y-o-y

The estimated rise of the city’s GDP for the first half of the year is 70% year-on-year, the Macau Economic Association (MEA) has noted in a statement.

Despite the significant increase, the aforementioned GDP figure will still represent about 65% of the average GDP recorded from 2017 to 2019, the association added.

Moreover, due to the abnormally low GDP in the second quarter of last year, the figure for the same period this year will see a 110% increase, the association estimated. The rise is due to the fact that the city was still under Covid-19 prevention measures during part of the second quarter of last year.

In relation to the city’s Prosperity Indices for June to September, the group expects scores between 5.6 and 5.8 points, which continue to fall within stable levels.

The optimism was mainly due to the rising daily average gross gambling revenue (GGR) – MOP502 million in May and MOP507 million in June – which were the highest since February 2020 and grew to 60% and 64% in the same months in 2019. Other determinants, such as the hotel occupancy rate and employment rate, have also reflected a recovering market.

However, there is still some pessimism about the future. Internationally, the purchasing managers’ indices for several developed countries have struggled below the prosperity line for several months, reflecting weakened demand and a dissatisfactory pace of recovery around the globe.

Moreover, central banks in European countries and the US might continue their interest rate hikes, signaling wider margins between the interest rates for USD as well as HKD and MOP.

In the meantime, in May, the M2 supply of USD rose by 46.6% while HKD dropped by 2.2%. This may lower affordability of capitalization. The city also saw 2.49% more bad debts in the non-resident group, the highest in history.

The index for May was 5.2 points, 0.1 points lower month-on-month. This is because the M2 currency supply in May recorded a 1.3% drop month-on-month, despite a consecutive rise in the preceding six months. In addition, May recorded 2.21 million counts of visitor arrival, a 2.6% drop month-on-month.