The impact of Great Britain’s referendum to leave the European Union (EU) will have a “relatively limited” impact on Macau, a statement by the office of Secretary for Economy and Finance Lionel Leong Vai Tac predicts.
According to the statement issued on Friday, Leong held a meeting with the Macau Monetary Authority (AMCM) on Friday to assess Brexit’s impact on the local economy.
The statement points out that the British pound accounts for merely 0.35 percent of the AMCM assets, while none of Macau’s official reserves are held in the British currency.
The statement also underlines that trade between Macau and the United Kingdom is small.
According to the statement, Macau’s foreign exchange reserves amounted to 150.5 billion patacas at the end of May. The financial reserves of the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) stood at 436.2 billion patacas at the end of April.
Meanwhile, the government said in a separate statement on Friday that it planned to invest 20 billion yuan (24.4 billion patacas) in large-scale infrastructure and other projects in Guangdong related to the neighbouring province’s Free Trade Zone and the well being of the populations of the two sides.
According to the statement, the investments, to be made gradually, will have a validity of 10 years.
The statement said that the investments was part of the Macau-Guangdong Joint Development Co-operation Fund and aimed to diversify and safeguard the assets of Macau’s financial reserves.
(Macau News / The Macau Post Daily)
