The gaming sector was the largest source of inward foreign direct investment (FDI) to Macau last year, recent official data show.
Information from the city’s Statistics and Census Service indicated that flows of inward FDI amounted to MOP36.1 billion (US$4.5 billion) in 2013, up by 16 percent from 2012. Gaming accounted for 77 percent of the total, while banking and finance was a distant second, with a share of less than 10 percent.
Inward FDI to Macau’s gaming sector reached MOP27.8 billion in 2013, up by 34 percent in year-on-year terms. The increase was largely due to the ongoing construction of several large-scale casino resorts in Cotai, Macau’s answer to the Las Vegas Strip.
For FDI statistical purposes, Macau, mainland China and Hong Kong are considered independent economies.
Market-wide inward FDI income totalled MOP78.9 billion in 2013, up by 31 percent year-on-year. “Rising profits of gaming enterprises induced record high income earned by direct investors, reaching MOP55.6 billion, up by 39 percent year-on-year,” the Macau statistics bureau said in a press release on Monday.
Stock of inward FDI to Macau reached MOP189.4 billion by the end of last year, with gaming accounting for almost 61 percent of the total.
