Macau 1H GDP tops US$25bln, first since 2019

Aug 23, 2024 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck  

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Macau’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 15.7 percent year-on-year in real terms in the first half of 2024. At current prices, GDP reached MOP204.27 billion (US$25.4 billion), according to data issued on Friday by the city’s Statistics and Census Service.

It was the first time that interim current-prices GDP had exceeded MOP200 billion since first-half 2019, a pre-pandemic trading period. Such GDP for the first six months of 2019 had been MOP220.14 billion.

Exports of services – including casino gaming services – accounted for 81.8 percent of current-prices GDP in the first half this year, i.e., just under MOP167.03 billion.

That was the first time since the opening quarter of 2019 that such exports – judged at current prices – had exceeded that percentage contribution.

In real terms, exports of gaming services and exports of other tourism services “swelled by 39.9 percent and 2.8 percent year-on-year respectively, and exceeded their corresponding levels in the same period in 2019 by over 20 percent,” said the statistics bureau.

It added: “Exports of services continued to thrive in the first half year, underpinned by the increases in number of visitor arrivals and tourism activities.”

Macau’s casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) for the first six months of 2024 was just over MOP113.75 billion, up 41.9 percent from the prior-year period, but 23.9 percent below the same cumulative period in 2019. That is according to government data issued at the time of the June GGR result.

In the second quarter, GDP rose by 6.9 percent year-on-year in real terms, of which exports of gaming services – a measure of what visiting gamblers contribute to GDP – increased by 22.6 percent.

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