Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that total of 1,047 new companies were incorporated in the fourth quarter of 2016, slightly down by 1 year-on-year; total value of registered capital decreased by 15.7% to MOP347 million. Analysed by industry, there were 329 new incorporations operating in Wholesale & Retail, 287 in Business Services and 127 in Construction. Companies in dissolutiontotalled 193, up by 22 year-on-year, and the value of registered capital of companies in dissolution amounted to MOP511 million.
In the fourth quarter of 2016, capital of the new companies came mainly from Macao (MOP167 million) and Hong Kong (MOP154 million). Capital from Mainland China amounted to MOP16 million, including MOP9 million from the 9 Provinces of the Pan-Pearl River Delta Region, with Guangdong province accounting for MOP8 million. Analysed by combination of the shareholders, there were 674 new companies established solely by Macao shareholders, and 128 joint ventures between shareholders from Macao and other countries or territories.
Number of new incorporations registered decline for two consecutive years. For the whole year of 2016, a total of 4,392 new companies were incorporated, down by 631 year-on-year; total value of registered capital dropped by 44.1% to MOP734 million. Analysed by industry, there were 1,416 new incorporations operating in Wholesale & Retail and 1,159 in Business Services, with the value of registered capital amounting to MOP135 million and MOP334 million. Number of companies in dissolution increased for 4 consecutive years, totalling 780 in 2016, with the value of registered capital of companies in dissolution amounting to MOP651 million.
Analysed by size of registered capital, there were 3,165 new companies (72.1% of total) registered with capital under MOP50,000, and the total value of capital was MOP82 million (11.2% of total). Meanwhile, there were 84 new companies registered with capital of MOP1,000,000 or over, and the total value of capital amounted to MOP492 million.
At the end of 2016, number of registered companies increased by 3,619 year-on-year to 56,676, of which commercial offshore companies went down by 19 year-on-year to 453.