Macau to launch 5-year plan for economic diversification

The Macau government will from today (Thursday, June 15) hold several sessions dedicated to garnering opinions from specific groups of stakeholders on a draft of its “Development Plan for Appropriate Economic Diversification of the Macao Special Administrative Region (2024-2028)”.

In a Wednesday statement, the government said the aim was to “further appropriate economic diversification and sustainable development of Macau”.

The development plan proposal sets a detailed path for, respectively, tourism and integrated leisure business; the fields of finance; technology; healthcare; the meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) business; and cultural and sports events.

The draft outlines plans for the development of each activity, “including major tasks and key projects for the next five years,” according to the announcement.

No copy of the draft development plan was made publicly available with the announcement.

The Macau government has a stated policy of diversifying the city’s economy from its reliance on the gaming industry.

As part of the public tender prior to the award of new 10-year concessions that began on January 1, applicants had to set out what non-gaming investments they would make, to help the city’s economic diversification.

The six Macau operators have as a whole pledged to the government to spend in aggregate a minimum of MOP108.7 billion (US$13.48 billion) on non-gaming and exploring overseas-customer markets during the fresh concessions. Collectively they will have to increase their pledged concession-related investment for the next decade by as much as 20 percent if citywide annual gross gaming revenue reaches MOP180 billion.

As part of the investment plans, the six gaming operators will also help to revitalise some of Macau’s old districts, in a bid to attract more tourists to different areas of the city.

In its Wednesday announcement, the Macau government said it would review its initial proposal after collecting opinions from specific groups of stakeholders, namely from Macau deputies to the National People’s Congress and Macau members of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference; members of the Executive Council; members of the Legislative Assembly; people involved in sectors covered by the plan; experts; and scholars.

There will then be a consultation process to hear views from members of the public, before publication of the final version of the document, it stated.

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