Macau seeing a pandemic-boosted expat exodus
A large number of people are currently leaving or preparing to leave Macau in what can potentially represent the largest exodus of expatriates in a long time, analysis of data from local freight forwarding companies suggests.
To the Times, Omar Jr, founder and board member of OT&T Cargo Group noted that while the number of inquiries per day has not registered a significant difference to the past couple of years, “the big difference is on the closing rate. While in the past we would roughly close 50% of the deals inquired [about], nowadays we are having a closing rate of around 100%. People that search for our services are not just doing inquiries, they are immediately closing the deal and reserving space for their removals,” Omar Jr said.
According to data provided, the company is receiving an average of three to four inquiries for direct freight between Macau and Portugal per day. Of these, as he previously noted, almost all turn into removals.
Besides Portugal, which is the route in which OT&T is a specialized and market leader, Omar Jr also noted that the company has been receiving requests for relocations from people from Macau to other places in the world with a notable number seeking to go to Dubai and other Middle-Eastern countries.
“Besides Portuguese, who are our main clients, we also have requests from Americans, Singaporeans, New Zealanders, Australians, and other Europeans, [especially] British nationals,” the freighting company official noted that sometimes, the Macau-Portugal route is also used to forward the belongings of people relocating to other parts of western Europe, such as Spain.
Although he noted that the pandemic has contributed to growth in the industry, Omar Jr also observed that the growth started before the pandemic.
“Back in 2019, we had a [peaking] summer when we helped to relocate a total of 87 families just in the summertime. Before 2019 an average of eight to 12 families would leave due to contract expiry and children’s end of term, among other reasons,” he said, adding, “In 2020, the suspension of flights and quarantine compliance prevented the families from leaving but as flights opened, there’s a mass exodus.”
OT&T says most customers relocating are mainly families, although they also note that there are a few requests from single people returning to the SAR.
Questioned on the motivations for the relocations, Omar Jr said they vary “from non-renewal of contracts or job exonerations, family reunions to assisting elderly parents in post-pandemic life re-assessment, and probably [also] due to the overall change in SAR dynamics.”
He further explained that the recent move to put locals into higher managerial positions in most medium and large-size enterprises has resulted in the termination and consequent removal of many expats who, over the years, occupied those leadership positions.
An addition contribution to a sometimes chaotic situation in the shipping industry is the fact that concurrently with the Covid-19 pandemic, the market has suffered changes to the so-called mass carriers that have significantly reduced the number of ships transporting goods and products worldwide, in addition to operating in an oligarchic system.
As Omar Jr explained, this resulted in fierce competition between small companies to secure container space in the few fleets circulating, which resulted in an exponential price hike.
“I can say that the current reference price for the route Macau-Portugal compared with the price from November 2020, has increased 18-fold. And on average, the prices of sea transport between Asia and Europe are 1,000% higher,” Omar Jr noted. This increase has also justified the decisiveness of the clients in immediately reserving, sometimes with a significant lead time, space for their belongings.
A similar perspective was shared with the Times by another major freight forwarding company in Macau. A company representative of World Freight Logistics Services Limited told the Times that it has been relocating “at least two to three families per week since 2021 until January this year.”
As with OT&T, World Freight noted that 2020 had a low point of relocations: “In 2020, the relocation rate dropped to about two to three families per month, while during the pre-pandemic period we would normally relocate at least one to two families per week.”
Among the major destinations of the relocations done in the past years by World Freight are Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, USA, UK, and some part of South East Asia,” the same representative remarked to the Times inquiry.
Travel agency accounts
for more returns
than departures
A local travel agency which has been favored by expatriates for the booking of inbound and outbound flights told the Times that at the moment and for upcoming months, there is more of an increase on requests from people to return to Macau than there is in those seeking to leave the MSAR.
“Leaving Macau, for the time being, and for the upcoming few months, we do not have many people. Including the departures via Hong Kong, we have 10 to 12 people for this month and the upcoming two to three months,” an agent surnamed Ng told the Times. Ng added, “returning to Macau [in the same period] we have more. Both returning clients and new, we have around 40 people returning.”
As Omar Jr also noted to the Times, due to the current situation regarding the expense of sea transportation, sometimes between the reservation of the removal and the effective time that a family departs, there is a significant time gap.
“Many of these families [have been] in Macau for many years and they own housing units and other Real Estate property that they wish to sell before leaving. Sometimes this takes some time and the reservation of container space must be done some time in advance,” he said. He added that the price hikes have contributed to people looking to reduce significantly the number of belongings they wish to ship, “which is perfectly understandable,” Omar Jr concluded.
