Macau’s gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 116.1 percent year-on-year in real terms in the third quarter this year, according to data from the city’s Statistics and Census Service. The increase was “attributable to the thriving exports of services,” said the statistics bureau in a report published on Friday.
Exports of services for the period rose by 284.1 percent year-on-year, with exports of gaming services and other tourism services up by 781.4 percent and 255.4 percent respectively, showed the data.
Gaming services in Macau are included in exports when calculating the city’s GDP. That is in order to reflect spending by tourists in the city’s casinos.
Macau’s casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) in the first nine months of 2023 stood at MOP128.95 billion (US$16.1 billion), up 305.3 percent from the comparable 2022 period.
The number of visitor arrivals in the third quarter this year “soared by 821.3 percent year-on-year to 8.3 million, corresponding to 83.5 percent of the visitor numbers in the same quarter of 2019,” said the statistics bureau.
“The improving economic environment and employment situation continued to boost private consumption activities,” it added.
Macau’s domestic demand increased by 15.7 percent year-on-year, “owing to a continued rebound in gross fixed capital formation and private consumption expenditure”.
For the first three quarters of 2023, Macau’s GDP surged by 77.7 percent year-on-year in real terms. The city’s overall economic output recovered to 77.4 percent of its level in the comparable period of 2019, the last trading year before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020.
