The Legislative Assembly (AL) yesterday passed next year’s budget bill, according to which the government will continue to run a budget deficit, although formally the budget is a balanced one thanks to a cash injection accounting for nearly 28 percent of next year’s expected government revenue.
According to the 2021 budget bill, the government will allocate 26.58 billion patacas from the Macau Special Administrative Region’s (MSAR) extraordinary reserves so as to fill the deficit – i.e. to keep a formally balanced budget.
The bill’s outline was passed during a plenary session of the legislature last month. The legislature’s 1st Standing Committee held four meetings to review the bill.
Secretary for Economy and Finance Lei Wai Nong attended yesterday’s plenary session when the bill was voted on article-by-article in its second and final reading.
The first draft of the bill expected the government’s revenues to reach 96.06 billion patacas next year, while the government’s expenditure was budgeted at 95.22 billion patacas – after reinforcements from the extraordinary reserves. Following the bill’s review by government officials and lawmakers in the 1st Standing Committee, the government revised – in its new version of the bill – next year’s expected revenues down to 95.81 billion patacas, while the government’s budgeted expenditure for next year remains unchanged at 95.22 billion patacas – thanks to the cash injection from the extraordinary reserves. The bill’s new version was passed by yesterday’s plenary session. According to the budget bill passed yesterday, the government expects a surplus of 597 million patacas (95.81 billion patacas minus 95.22 billion patacas).
The government has drafted next year’s budget bill based on its estimation of next year’s gross gaming revenue at 130 billion patacas, as the local economy, according to the government, would still need time to recover from adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
During yesterday’s plenary session, Lei underlined that the government would need to continue increasing its investment in public projects in order to boost employment in the construction sector.
Lei also underlined the government’s ongoing project to renovate the city’s public toilets. He said the project aimed to create more job opportunities for residents through small construction projects, adding that the conditions of public toilets were “a mirror reflecting a city and its municipal management level”.
Meanwhile, Lei also said during yesterday’s plenary session that early this year the local government suspended the injection of money into the publicly funded Macau Investment and Development Limited (MID) and its investment plans. He pledged that the government will fully review and reform the company’s management next year.
In a hard-hitting report released on Friday, the Commission of Audit (CA) slammed Macau Investment and Development Limited – which was set up by the Macau government in 2011 tasked with developing a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) industrial park in Hengqin (a cooperation project between Guangdong and Macau) – for ignoring cost-efficiency principles when making decisions on how to develop the park.
The budget bill was passed unanimously.
Secretary for Economy and Finance Lei Wai Nong (third from left, upper row) addresses yesterday’s plenary session in the Legislative Assembly’s (AL) hemicycle.
Photo: GCS
