Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the 4th Quarter 2019
Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) dropped by 8.1% year-on-year in real terms in the fourth quarter of 2019, a steeper decline compared to the previous quarter, which was mainly attributable to a further decrease in exports of services. External demand continued to slow; exports of services fell by 7.5% year-on-year, with exports of gaming services and other tourism services reducing by 9.8% and 7.0% respectively. Exports of goods went down by 6.2%. As regards domestic demand, investment plunged by 13.9% year-on-year, whereas private consumption expenditure and government final consumption expenditure rose by 2.7% and 1.9% respectively.
The economy of Macao has experienced negative growth since the first quarter of 2019, owing to decreases in investment and exports of services; as a result, the economy shrank by 4.7% in real terms for the whole year of 2019. Domestic demand weakened, down by 4.6% year-on-year; gross fixed capital formation fell by 20.1% as private construction investment showed a drastic decline. Despite an increase in total employment and employment earnings, the growth in private consumption expenditure slowed to 2.9% on the back of cautious consumer spending due to economic uncertainties. Government final consumption expenditure rose by 3.9% year-on-year, representing a 0.4 percentage point rise; compensation of employees and net purchases of goods and services went up by 2.4% and 5.7% respectively. With respect to external demand, total spending of visitors decreased in spite of a growth in visitor arrivals, and gross revenue from games of chance dropped at an accelerating pace as from the third quarter; hence, exports of services slid by 3.4% year-on-year, with exports of gaming services and other tourism services reducing by 4.0% and 5.7% respectively. Besides, exports of goods fell by 8.3%.
In 2019, GDP amounted to MOP434.7 billion and per-capita GDP was MOP645,438 (approximately USD79,977). Meanwhile, the implicit deflator of GDP, which measures overall changes in prices, rose by 2.6% in 2019 and 2.5% in the fourth quarter.
