The University of Macau (UM) announced yesterday that, taking into account the “uncertainty” about the mainland’s economic performance next year, its researchers forecast that Macau’s economy will grow between 8.3 percent and 21 percent next year.
The public university announced the forecast in a statement yesterday. The university’s annual forecast on Macau’s economy is carried out by a research team consisting of economists from its Department of Economics. The GDP forecast project is administered by the university’s Centre for Macau Studies (CMS).
According to the statement, the research team expects next year’s local economy to be affected by the uncertainty of the mainland’s economic development. The team has concluded that next year’s possible continuation of the current contraction of the mainland’s property market, as well as the mainland’s local government debt and corporate debt, could “adversely affect” the population’s income there, lowering mainlanders’ desire to visit Macau and the consumption power of those visiting Macau next year, the statement said.
The statement said that in view of the fact that the number of visitor arrivals from the mainland could be expected to still be the main factor affecting Macau’s economic development, the research team has come up with two possible scenarios with different growth rates of the number of visitor arrivals from the mainland next year.
According to the statement, the first scenario, a relatively optimistic forecast, assumes that next year’s possible slowdown in the mainland’s economic growth would have a “smaller impact” on Macau, in which case the number of visitor arrivals from the mainland would continue to grow at a relatively rapid rate, bringing next year’s number back to the 2019 level.
The second scenario, a relatively cautious prediction, assumes that the possible slowdown in the mainland’s 2024 economic growth would have a “bigger impact” on Macau, in which case next year’s number of visitor arrivals from the mainland would only grow at a “very low” rate, five percent up from this year, according to the statement.
The research team forecasts next year’s growth in Macau’s gross domestic product (GDP) of 21 percent based on its first, “relatively optimistic”, scenario, while it predicts that the city’s GDP will grow just 8.3 percent based on its second, “relatively cautious”, scenario, the statement said.
In the two scenarios, according to the statement, Macau’s 2024 GDP in real terms will return to 96.1 percent and 85.9 percent of the 2019 level respectively.
The statement noted that after the three-year impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the local economy, the Macau government adjusted its anti-COVID-19 policy in December last year, after which the number of visitor arrivals began to recover early this year.
The Macau government discontinued its long-running dynamic zero-COVID approach in early December last year.
The statement noted that the number of visitor arrivals from Hong Kong has recovered at the fastest pace, reaching 5.95 million between January and October, which represented 97.1 percent of the same period of 2019, while Macau recorded 15.32 million visitor arrivals from the mainland between January and October this year, representing 64.4 percent of 2019’s corresponding period.
However, the statement noted, the number of visitor arrivals from all other regions and countries has only recovered at a “relatively slow” pace as Macau recorded 1.42 million visitor arrivals from those places between January and October this year, representing only 40.7 percent of the same period of 2019.
Moreover, the statement also noted that with the post-COVID-19 recovery of its tourism sector, Macau’s exports of services in real terms reached 200.9 billion patacas in the first three quarters of this year, representing 79.6 percent of the level in the same period of 2019. However, the exports of gaming services have only recovered at a “relatively slow” pace, amounting to 101.1 billion patacas in real terms in the first three quarters of this year, which represented only 56.1 percent of the level in the same period of 2019.
Meanwhile, the statement also said that with the aim of assessing the latest changes in Macau’s economic performance in a timely manner, the research team now “aims to” announce its latest GDP forecasts every quarter from next year.
This photo taken from Big Taipa Hill (aka Taipa Grande) on Saturday shows casino-hotel resorts in Cotai.
– Photo: Tony Wong
