COULD DO BETTER

2014/9/1

From：Macau Business Daily

Macau’s gross domestic product expanded 8.1 percent in the 2Q. That’s good but not as good as the 12.4 percent of the previous quarter. Economic performance was boosted by investment and exports of tourism services.

Macau’s Gross Domestic Product increased 8.1 percent year-on-year in real terms during the second quarter of the year, the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) revealed on Friday. In spite of the good performance, economic growth did not keep pace with the first quarter when GDP increased 12.4 percent. During the second quarter economic growth was motivated by investment and exports of other tourism services.
In relation to investment, gross fixed capital formation expanded 52.7 percent year-on-year. Private investment jumped 56.4 percent, as the construction of tourism and gaming facilities is operating in Macau at full speed. Construction and equipment investment surged 58.9 percent and 46.96 percent, respectively, during the second quarter. As for government investment, this increased 9.6 percent, motivated by public construction investment and equipment investment that went up 10.4 percent and 4 percent, respectively.
According to data from DSEC, in the second quarter of the year both merchandise exports and the export of other tourism services both increased by 10.4 percent.
Merchandise exports were buoyed by the increase in external demand. On the other hand, expanding private investment, rising private consumption expenditure and visitor arrivals enabled the imports of merchandise to climb 18.3 percent. The increase in the export of other tourism services was accounted for by rising visitor arrivals and spending.

Exports of gaming services shrinking

After six quarters of increases, the export of gaming services decreased by 0.5 percent. This change was justified by the weak performance of the gaming sector that also led the growth of total exports of services to narrow to 1.3 percent and imports of services to fall 11.1 percent year-on-year.
While the export of gaming services was declining, private consumption expenditure registered a solid growth of 7 percent year-on year. “In view of the buoyant labour market and mounting manpower needs, both total employment and working income rose to record highs”, the DSEC explained.
Household final consumption expenditure went up as well for both domestic and foreign markets. In Macau, this consumption increased 7.3 percent. Abroad, household consumption increased slightly slower than ‘indoors’ at a rate of 6.6 percent.
Government consumption expenditure followed the same trend as household consumption, increasing 4.8 percent year-on-year. In terms of government expenditure, employee compensation rose 3.4 percent, while net purchases of goods and services increased 7.5 percent.
With regard to the first half of the year, Macau GDP registered a growth of 10.2 percent year-on-year. However, the economic expansion (8.1 percent) of the second quarter of this year performed worse than in the second quarter of last year (9.3 percent).

Copyright@Macau Business Daily