Macao’s fiscal reserves reached 599 billion patacas in May, a month-on-month increase of almost 4 billion patacas, TDM reports.
The reserve has been growing thanks to interest generated, which has amassed just over 14 billion patacas since January this year.
At the end of May, the SAR’s basic reserve amounted to 153 billion patacas while the extraordinary reserve totalled 432 billion patacas, the same as in April.
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The total came to 90 percent of the fiscal reserve’s record high, 664 billion patacas, achieved in February 2021 – one year into the pandemic. Later on, the government was forced to dip into its reserves to cover public expenditure, withdrawing more than 100 billion patacas to plug shortfalls in its budget.
When the government announced this year’s budget, forecasting the first surplus since the pandemic began, it noted there would be “no need to resort to the financial reserve” in 2024.
In March, Fitch Ratings described Macao’s “large and rising” fiscal reserves as a “considerable and key credit strength” helping to maintain the SAR’s AA credit rating. The US credit rating agency also noted that Macao was “the only entity in Fitch’s global sovereign portfolio without any outstanding government debt”.
