Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the fourth quarter of 2014 decreased by 17.2% year-on-year in real terms, owing to the significant decline in gross gaming revenue and shrinking visitor spending; GDP for the whole year of 2014 contracted by 0.4% in real terms.
Exports of gaming services tumbled further by 28.9% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2014 after a 12.3% decrease in the third quarter. Meanwhile, visitor arrivals increased but visitor spending decreased, causing exports of other tourism services to drop by 15.7%. Regarding other components, merchandise exports grew by 42.7%, gross fixed capital formation expanded by 27.7%, private consumption expenditure and government final consumption expenditure rose by 4.6% and 5.9% respectively in the fourth quarter. Although the performance of other segments of the economy was comparatively good, the economy of Macao contracted by 17.2% in real terms in the fourth quarter on account of a 26% decline in exports of services.
For the whole year of 2014, the economy of Macao shrank by 0.4% in real terms, resulting from a 10.5% growth in the first half of the year but a 10.2% decline in the second half. GDP amounted to MOP443.3 billion and per-capita GDP was MOP 713,514 (about USD89,333). The economic contraction was mainly due to a 7.9% decrease in exports of gaming services, while exports of other tourism services dropped marginally by 0.3%. Apart from the gaming and tourism sector, increase was felt across other components of GDP over the past year, of which gross fixed capital formation rose substantially by 35.2%, private consumption expenditure and government final consumption expenditure grew by 5.9% and 7.1% respectively, merchandise exports expanded by 20.7% and merchandise imports went up by 16.7%; meanwhile, imports of services decreased by 13.8%. As the negative effects of decreasing exports of gaming and tourism services were largely offset by the better performance of domestic demand, the economy registered a mere contraction in 2014.
GDP growth in real terms for the first 3 quarters of 2014 was revised to 13.1%, 8.0% and -2.3% respectively, while economic growth for 2013 was revised to 10.7%. Moreover, the implicit deflator of GDP that measures changes in prices increased by 7.9% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2014 and 8.5% for the whole year of 2014.
As regards GDP structure by major components, relative importance of net exports of goods and services to GDP dropped from 60.5% in 2013 to 54.4% in 2014 on account of the decline in exports of gaming and tourism services. On the contrary, relative importance of domestic demand enlarged from 39.5% to 45.6% in 2014, mainly due to an increase in the share of investment by 5.0 percentage points to 19.1%; meanwhile, relative importance of both private consumption expenditure (19.4%) and government final consumption expenditure (7.1%) edged up by 0.5 percentage points.
* Please find attached file
