According to the statistics released today by the Monetary Authority of Macao, investment of Macao residents (including individuals, the government and other legal entities, but excluding Macao’s foreign exchange reserves) in securities issued by unrelated non-residents reached MOP484.7 billion at current market value on 31 December 2016, an increase of 9.4% from 30 June 2016 and 10.5% year-on-year. Among various instruments of portfolio investment, equity securities (including mutual funds and investment trust units), long-term debt securities and short-term debt securities were valued at MOP183.9 billion, MOP285.9 billion and MOP14.9 billion respectively. As compared with end-2015, equity securities and long-term debt securities rose by 8.2% and 15.6% respectively, while short-term debt securities dropped by 30.4%.
By geographical distribution, the Asian region continued to occupy the largest share of Macao residents’ external portfolio investment, at 56.6%. The rest was mainly placed in the North Atlantic and the Caribbean (15.0%), Europe (12.3%), North America (10.4%) and Oceania (5.1%).
Investment in securities issued by Mainland Chinese entities, including those securities listed on non-Mainland exchanges, continued to assume the leading position, occupying 38.6% of local residents’ portfolio investment outside Macao. Its market value fell by 8.7% from a year earlier to MOP187.3 billion. The investment consisted of MOP51.4 billion in equity securities, MOP131.8 billion in long-term debt securities and MOP4.1 billion in short-term debt securities, taking up 28.0%, 46.1% and 27.5% of the respective investment category. Meanwhile, the share of investment in securities issued by Hong Kong entities rose slightly from 13.4% at end-2015 to 13.6%, with the corresponding market value increasing by 12.1% to MOP65.8 billion, of which equity securities and long-term debt securities amounted to MOP40.7 billion and MOP20.8 billion respectively.
Macao residents’ portfolio investment in the North Atlantic and the Caribbean continued to increase. The market value of investment in this region rose by 36.0% from end-2015 to MOP72.6 billion, with its share in the total investment abroad rising from 12.2% to 15.0%. In particular, the market value of portfolio investment in the Cayman Islands swelled by 21.1% from end-2015 to MOP32.8 billion.
The share of investment in European securities rose by 1.7 percentage points from end-2015 to 12.3%, and the corresponding market value grew by 28.3% to MOP59.5 billion. Among the European countries, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg and the Netherlands represented larger portions with market values of MOP12.9 billion, MOP12.4 billion and MOP8.2 billion respectively.
The bulk of investment in North America was placed in the United States. The market value of Macao residents’ investment in US securities rose by 17.6% from end-2015 to MOP46.8 billion, pushing up its share in the total external portfolio investment abroad from 9.1% to 9.7%.
At end-2016, Macao residents’ investment in securities issued by Australian entities increased by 60.4% from a year ago to MOP22.6 billion at market value, lifting the share of portfolio investment in Oceania from 3.2% to 5.1%.
The compilation of Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey (CPIS), jointly conducted by the Monetary Authority of Macao (AMCM) and the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC), follows the methodology advocated by the International Monetary Fund.