The Macau Economic Association predicts that the territory’s economic growth in the next six months will be “slow”. This, in view of the most recent “not encouraging” economic indicators, the complex international context, marked by the galloping rise in inflation, and despite recent signs of the Government’s border relaxation, which includes the reduction of quarantines to 10 days and the extension of the term of nucleic acid tests for those entering Macao from Guangdong.
In addition, according to the association’s economic prospects released on Monday and cited by the newspaper Ou Mun, the index of consumer confidence in Mainland China reached in April 2022 the lowest level since the beginning of the pandemic, having registered a drop of 28.6 percent year on year. This fact has direct implications for the availability and willingness of mainland tourists to come and consume in Macau.
The Macau Economic Association also points to an annual drop of 24.2 billion patacas (3.5 percent) in the liquidity index (M2), which includes the level of savings and bank deposits of residents, thus entering, by for the first time, at the “slow” growth level.
Although the number of visitors entering Macau started to increase from March onwards, the increase represents only an improvement of around 20 percent compared to the period before the pandemic, where other indicators such as gross gaming revenues, the value of of shares in publicly traded concessionaires and hotel occupancy rates remain classified at a “very low” level.
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