Macau sees new high in financial reserve ROI

Macau’s return on investment (ROI) of its financial reserve for fiscal year 2020 amounted to MOP31 billion, topping the list of years as far as monetary amount is concerned, the government has announced in a statement.
Presented as a percentage, the ROI amounted to 5.3%. For the last five years, the average annual ROI was 3.1%. The annual rate of inflation over the same period was 2%.
Reviewing the 2020 fiscal year, the government stressed that it utilized MOP46.6 billion to balance off the budget deficit. Meanwhile, it also transferred MOP52.26 billion from the surplus of the fiscal year 2018 to the financial reserve.
As of the end of 2020, the capital of the financial reserve has risen year-on-year by 6.3% to MOP616 billion.
The government noted that it has pivoted to a defensive strategy with regards to conducting investment during the early stages of the Covid-19 outbreak in Macau last year. That said, the government has reduced its portfolio of higher-risk assets.
As explained by the government, the second half of the year saw improvements in the overall global investment market.
In terms of credit securities, the Financial Reserve extended the average durations of assets allocated to securities portfolios in an orderly manner, as well as reinforcing the percentage of securities in Chinese yuan, in order to guarantee higher yields.
On the other hand, in the field of money market deposits, these continued to generate lower-risk income, derived from interest, for the Financial Reserve, despite the fact that the almost-zero interest rate reduced interest income in general. AL