Macau’s gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 11.5 percent year-on-year in real terms in the second quarter, an acceleration from the 10.3 percent rise in the first quarter, the Statistics and Census Bureau (DSEC) has announced.
A DSEC statement on Friday that Macau Post Daily had access to attributed the two-digit growth to the quarter’s increases in exports of services and private consumption.
According to the statement, external demand continued to expand, driving exports of services up by 18.8 percent, in which exports of gaming services and other tourism services grew by 19.0 percent and 22.1 percent respectively.
Domestic demand rose steadily, as private consumption and imports of goods increased by 3.4 percent and 2.4 percent respectively, but both government final consumption expenditure and investment decreased by 2.4 percent.
The implicit deflator of GDP, which measures the overall changes in prices, rose by 2.2 percent.
The statement pointed out that stable economic conditions, easing inflation and a favourable employment situation drove private consumption expenditure up.
The statement underlined that investment slowed down. “Along with the successive completion of large-scale tourism and entertainment facilities, gross fixed capital formation contracted by 2.4 percent year-on-year, far lower than the 7.1 percent growth in the previous quarter.”
In the first half of the year, GDP grew by 10.9 percent.
According to a separate DSEC statement, retail sales rose by 10.1 percent year on year to 14.48 billion patacas in the second quarter. However, revenue decreased by 12.2 percent from the previous quarter.
Watches and jewellery accounted for 22 percent of total retail sales in the second quarter.
Retail sales in the first half of the year rose by 10.8 percent to 30.98 billion patacas.
Meanwhile, the bureau also announced last week that the number of visitor arrivals in the first seven months grew by 5.3 percent to 18.48 million. While overnight visitors rose by 12.6 percent to 9.71 million, same-day visitors dropped by 1.8 percent to 8.77 million. Overnight visitors stayed for an average of 2.1 days.
In July, the number of visitors increased by 4.4 percent to 2.9 million. Month-on-month, the figure was up by 22. 7 percent due to the approaching summer holiday, the bureau pointed out. Mainlanders accounted for 69 percent of all visitor arrivals last month.
According to another DSEC statement, the average earnings (excluding bonuses) off full-time employees in the gaming sector stood at 23,080 patacas in June, a year-on-year increase of 4.6 percent. Dealers’ average earnings rose by 5.1 percent to 19,930 patacas.
At the end of June, the gaming sector’s number of full-time staff amounted to 55,726. The number of dealers dropped by 1.3 percent to 23,980.
The number of job vacancies stood at 923 at the end of June, up by 336 year on year. Some 51.1 percent of the vacancies were for clerical positions, apart from 270 openings of dealers.
In the second quarter, 1,035 new employees were hired by the sector, an increase of 56.8 percent year on year.
The employee recruitment rate (1.9 percent), employee turnover rate (1.7 percent) and job vacancy rate (1.6 percent) rose by 0.7, 0.2 and 0.6 percentage points respectively year on year. “These indicators suggested that the human resources situation in the gaming sector was rather stable [in the second quarter],” the bureau said.
The bureau’s gaming sector employment data does not include the junket segment.
