Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contracted by 23.4% year-on-year in real terms in the fourth quarter of 2022. External demand remained sluggish. Owing to a 31.5% fall in the number of visitor arrivals, exports of services dropped by 27.1% year-on-year, of which exports of gaming services and exports of other tourism services declined by 46.6% and 30.5% respectively. In addition, exports of goods decreased by 14.1%. As regards domestic demand, gross fixed capital formation and private consumption expenditure went down by 13.9% and 10.5% year-on-year respectively, while government final consumption expenditure grew by 1.9%.
In 2022, tourism and local economic activity were hindered by the border control and local lockdown measures that were imposed in response to the multiple coronavirus outbreaks in the neighbouring regions as well as the large-scale infections in the local community in June. Total demand weakened and the economy of Macao declined by 26.8% year-on-year in real terms in 2022. Domestic demand fell by 9.3% year-on-year; private consumption expenditure dropped by 8.9% and government final consumption expenditure edged down by 0.1%. Gross fixed capital formation showed a year-on-year decrease of 18.9%, which resulted from reduced investment in private construction. With respect to external demand, exports of gaming services and other tourism services slid by 52.7% and 29.6% year-on-year respectively, dragged down by a 26.0% drop in the number of visitor arrivals; as a result, exports of services contracted by 32.1%. Besides, exports of goods dipped by 18.1%.
In 2022, GDP amounted to MOP177.3 billion and per-capita GDP was MOP261,459 (approximately USD32,415). The implicit deflator of GDP, which measures the overall changes in prices, grew by 0.4% year-on-year for the whole year of 2022 and by 1.1% for the fourth quarter.
The rates of change of GDP for the first, second and third quarters of 2022 were revised to -10.9%, -40.2% and -32.3% respectively.