The Macao government and the Macau Chamber of Commerce launched a new 10-week community consumption campaign today, aimed at boosting the local economy by encouraging residents to spend in the city.
Scheduled to end on 1 June, the 295 million-pataca initiative promotes spending by giving residents three weekly chances to earn e-vouchers on participating e-wallet apps whenever they spend 50 or more patacas on the weekdays. These digital vouchers can then be redeemed at over 20,000 participating offline businesses on the weekends.
To further drive spending, residents who spend 50 or more patacas on a single transaction over the weekend will automatically go into a weekly lucky draw and the final Grand Prize lucky draw, which have a combined prize pool of 1 million patacas.
In order to encourage participation among senior residents, the programme also allows locals aged 65 or above to enjoy 300 patacas’ worth of discounts, which can be activated on the latest version of their topped-up senior Macao Pass cards at any of the 130 designated service points.
Under this scheme, seniors will receive a 50 percent discount whenever they make a purchase via their Macao Pass card. As well, elderly residents are entitled to participate in the e-voucher strand of the programme.
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According to a statement, the campaign’s discounts do not cover payments for a range of areas, including water, electricity, natural gas, fuel, telecommunication, audio-visual services, cross border traffic services, overseas travel and healthcare.
In addition, the campaign does not extend to supermarkets, casino-resorts, taxis, parking lots, education institutions, online consumption platforms, banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions.
The current campaign is an extension of two earlier ones that took place last year. The first of these took place exclusively in the Northern District between 18 March and 4 August, helping to stimulate around 150 million patacas in consumption.
This was followed by a citywide consumption drive that was held from 30 September to 29 December, which spurred 1.1 billion patacas in spending – an amount that the current scheme is also expected to reach.
These campaigns are part of the SAR government’s broader efforts to support local small and medium sized enterprises, which have been struggling in recent years, as more locals divert their attention to mainland China, where prices are cheaper and options are more plentiful.
