Melco Crown launches SME procurement program

Melco Crown Entertainment Limited (MCE) announced, in collaboration with the Macao Chamber of Commerce (MCC), its Macau SME (Small and Medium Enterprises) Procurement Development Program, which will kick-off on June 17th, same day as the SME Open Day, where business matching sessions will be arranged for the small entities, under the “Food & Beverage” and “Hotel Operations” categories.
This program is supported by several public departments. Its aim is to provide further business opportunities to local SMEs, thus helping them to attain higher levels of productivity, as well as professionalism.
Within the scope of the program, MCE’s procurement policy states that if the products supplied by different vendors are identical in terms of price and quality, then priority will be given to local SME vendors. The policy is a symbol of the company’s intention “to grow with the SMEs and micro enterprises in Macau,” according to Senior Vice President of Finance (Macau), Janelle Campbell.

According to Ted Chan, Chief Operating Officer of MCE, the company “has been developing long-term business relationships with local SMEs since 2003 [… and] we hope to increase our local purchases, as well as the number of [our] SME partners.”
Separately, on the sidelines of yesterday’s announcement event, Lawrence Ho, CEO and Chairman of MCE, claimed that MCE is continuously adding non-gaming elements to their offerings.
Last week, the closely watched report on the mid-term review of the city’s gaming industry was released, where it was revealed that MCE’s designed construction area for non-gaming elements corresponds to 93 percent of the property.
“We will see what else [in terms of non-gaming elements] we can add,” said Ho, adding: “We are very pleased with the mid-term report, and we will keep supporting the government and the Secretary for Economy [and Finance] to continue developing it.”
Ho also said that he’s not very happy with Studio City’s financial results. He listed among the reasons for the poor performance the fact that the Parisian Macao resort is currently blocking the road to access Studio City and making it hard for customers to access it.