Macao’s smaller-sized businesses have it worse now than they did during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Sunny Ip Sio Man, the chairman of the Macau Small and Medium Enterprises Development Alliance. Ip told the Macau Post Daily that retailers trading in daily necessities – from groceries to manicures and car repairs – are particularly hard hit and “going through a depression.”
He attributed their problems to a “northbound trend” for local consumers – meaning they travel to the mainland to take advantage of its cheaper prices and greater variety. Changes in tourists’ behaviour and online shopping are also impacting retailers in Macao.
The easing of travel restrictions is particularly significant. Ip pointed to a recent government policy allowing Macao-registered cars to cross the border, meaning people can load a car boot with “a season’s worth of clothes, shoes and socks” while in the mainland, and are not limited to what they can bring back to Macao by hand, as they were previously.
[See more: People from Macao and Hong Kong spend 454 million yuan in Zhuhai each month]
Meanwhile, he told the paper that mainland prices were also reaching Macao via online shopping. The Chinese e-commerce giant Taobao, for example, saw its transaction values in Macao increase four-fold when comparing the first 10 months of this year with the same period in 2023.
As well, mainland Chinese tourists tend to be on tighter budgets than previously, owing to the country’s uncertain economic conditions. The ubiquity of digital photography means they also rarely buy physical keepsakes of Macao, Ip pointed out, preferring to rely on selfies as souvenirs. “Although there are more tourists, the market economy is not as active as it used to be,” Ip told Macau Post Daily.
According to data from the Statistics and Census Bureau, overall retail receipts in Macao plunged by more than 22 percent year-on-year in August.
