Recession likely to reach double-digit percentage points, economist says

Local economist Albano Martins predicts that the city’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will face a downturn likely to reach double-digit percentage points.
“Everything indicates that the gaming revenue will continue to drop sharply, at least during the first half of the year. That slump will negatively affect Macau’s GDP,” he said.
According to data from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC), the city’s economy shrank 17.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014, after casino revenues slumped and visitors cut spending. Gross domestic product for the full year dropped 0.4 percent following a 10.2 percent decline in the second half of the year.
Albano Martins thinks that 2015 will be a negative year for the local economy because “the government can do almost nothing to counter the effects that the gaming industry revenue fall has on local GDP, since the economy is small and the size of the public sector is not significant when compared with gaming.”
Taking the first two months of the year into consideration, gaming revenue is falling 31.5 percent year-on-year. In January revenues dropped 17.4 percent, and in February the slump was much more pronounced, reaching 35.1 percent compared to the same month last year. MDT/Lusa