Our Desk | Gov’t surplus could be used for ‘art handout’

I stand fully behind the government’s drive to build Macau’s creative and cultural industries in a sustainable manner. It is economically prudent to reduce the territory’s reliance on a single revenue stream and – in light of Macau’s probable eventual integration with the mainland, and the Communist Party’s contempt for gambling – it makes sense to wean ourselves off our dependence on gaming.
The government makes a great deal of noise about cultural industries; dashing to set up new competitions, installations, film festivals and so forth, while throwing its financial backing behind anything that contributes to the promotion of culture.
But this ‘overnight’ approach is probably insufficient to create a truly organic cultural class, which is a necessity if the cultural and creative industries want to achieve anything resembling sustainability. Apart from the world-class acts that grace Macau with one-off shows, my anecdotal experience of cultural events has flagged the issue of poor attendance.
In order for these industries to be well attended and therefore sustainable, Macau needs to simultaneously develop a producer and a consumer class of cultural products and services. These need not be mutually exclusive groupings.
Specifically, we need to instill a sense of creativity in our youth by giving them a reason to develop an interest in art and culture. We need to encourage these same people – and their peers –
to consume the products by attending performances, supporting local hand-crafted products and so on.
Macau’s resources are limited. The MSAR doesn’t have a lot of land to repurpose, nor does it have the seven million-plus population of Hong Kong. But we do have one key resource: a large government surplus at the end of the fiscal year.
One proposal that might be interesting is an ‘art handout’ system similar to the regular handouts in place for residents and non-permanent residents.
The idea here would be to grant a nominal annual sum to every young person who completes a cultural product or service. This could be anything from paintings and sculptures to the online sale of one’s own tie-dyed t-shirts. The bar doesn’t need to be set too high, because the creation itself is beside the point.
The ultimate goal here is to stimulate a conversation and an interest in this field, thereby creating a well-informed generation that is eager to experience cultural and creative products. Young people might ask each other what they are doing this year to qualify for their ‘art handout’. They might go to see their peers’ finished works or exhibits. As both a producer and a consumer, every young person would then have a genuine interest in experiencing cultural products.
According to the AL’s initial reading on the government budget for 2016, the government surplus is expected to be around MOP18.2 billion. If such a program were offered to all persons between the ages of 10 and 30 in the MSAR, around 175,000 individuals would be eligible for the ‘art handout’.
For the purpose of my calculations, I am assuming that non-permanent residents and non-resident citizens would also be eligible for the handout – though, from my experience in Macau, this seems highly unlikely.
But if all these people applied for handouts from the fund, which granted something like MOP5,000 for the successful completion of an annual project, the full cost of the handout would amount to just MOP875 million per year, less than 5 percent of the predicted surplus. This figure could be a lot less in reality, though my crude estimations do not account for any administrative costs.
Macau already has funds for cultural projects, but these are usually only for contest winners. Too often, you need to prove your credentials or experience in the field in order to be eligible for a grant. This is all well and good, but it doesn’t do much to expand the producer class or tempt a new generation of consumers. Daniel Beitler