Public expenditure in Macau rose by 15.6% in 2022, despite gaming revenues falling by 43.6%, according to the latest data released by the Territory’s Directorate of Finance Services.
Last year, the current revenue of the Chinese special administrative region was 36.2 billion patacas (4.2 billion euros), 28.2% less than in 2021, the year in which the territory’s economy also had been heavily affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
From this current revenue, the city government collected more than 19.4 billion patacas (almost 2.3 billion euros) in gambling taxes, according to the latest budget execution report.
Macau collected 71.8% of projected revenue for 2022 in the region’s budget, revised in July. Compared to the initial budget, the city achieved only 54.8% of the initial estimate.
Despite the drop in revenues, public expenditure rose, reaching 99.6 billion patacas (11.6 billion euros), with current expenditure also increasing by 15.7% to 83.2 billion patacas (9 .7 billion euros).
Macau was only able to keep its accounts in positive territory thanks to transfers worth a total of 68.2 billion patacas (7.9 billion euros) from the financial reserve.
Since the end of January 2020, the pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on gambling, the engine of Macau’s economy, with taxes on revenues from this industry funding the overwhelming majority of the government budget.
Since then, the Macao Government’s budgets have been marked by successive changes and stimulus packages aimed at small and medium-sized companies, the population in general and consumption.
