The government will start to distribute its annual “wealth-sharing” cash handouts to residents from early next month, Executive Council (ExCo) spokesman Leong Heng Teng has announced.
The amount for the handout scheme this year is MOP 9,000 for permanent and MOP 5,400 for non-permanent residents, both unchanged from last year, Leong said at a special press conference at the Government Headquarters on Friday, according to the Macau Post Daily.
The last batch of beneficiaries will receive their cash handouts in September, according to Leong.
According to Leong, this year 638,627 permanent residents and 61,985 non-permanent residents benefit from the scheme. The total number of beneficiaries amounts to 700,612 this year.
The government’s expenditure on the scheme will reach MOP 6.08 billion, Leong said.
According to a statement from the Executive Council released on the same day, the total number of beneficiaries (permanent and non-permanent residents) in 2008 – the year when the cash handout scheme was launched – was 534,672, involving a total government expenditure of 2.55 billion patacas.
The amount for the cash handout in 2008 was MOP 5,000 for permanent and MOP 3,000 for non-permanent residents.
The total expenditure on the scheme dropped to MOP 2.26 billion in 2011, when the government lowered the amount to MOP 4,000 for permanent and MOP 2,400 for non-permanent residents. Since 2011, the expenditure on the handout scheme has been rising, according to the statement.
