News

Constructed and operated by Macau Hoteliers and Innkeepers Association with the support from Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO), "Macau Budget Hotels Site" is officially launched today (November 27) to help boosting local budget hotels' competitiveness and capability of operation as well as fostering the diversified development of tourist markets. The web address of "Macau Budget Hotels Site" is www.macau-budgethotels.org , a non-profit website available in three languages, namely traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese and English. The website content includes information of the budget hotels, online room-booking service for direct transactions between consumers and operators, travel information, etc. While some budget hotels are not prepared yet to run their operation electronically, 8 budget hotels have joined the online room-booking service at the first stage with the assistance of Macau Hoteliers and Innkeepers Association, with over 500 rooms available for booking, comprising one third of same-category rooms operated in Macau. With the trade and government's concerted efforts, it is believed that more accommodation entities can participate in the online booking service in the future. After receiving a booking confirmation from the hotels, clients can settle the payment upon check-in. "Macau Budget Hotels Site" will also launch the online payment service soon. Clients can pay online through Visa, Master or Unionpay cards. Room payment can be refunded if booking is cancelled within the stipulated period. In order to increase budget hotel operators and employees' competitiveness and also in accord with the website development, Macau Hoteliers and Innkeepers Association have progressively organized various kinds of training courses for the industry practitioners of budget hotels, e.g. sales and operation management, cleaning management, room product procurement, website back-end management, etc. In order to facilitate the long-term goal of developing Macau into a "World Centre of Tourism and Leisure" as well as to cater for the demand of budget hotel market development, MGTO encourages and supports the trade to launch "Macau Budget Hotels Site", endeavoring to upgrade Macau budget hotels' capability of operation and competitiveness and to contribute more effort in promoting budget accommodation so that it can further diversify the tourist markets and fulfill various visitors' needs. Budget hotels commonly refer to hotels and guest houses rated two stars or lower. Currently, there are 13 two-star hotels, 4 three-star guest houses and 29 two-star guest houses, providing close to 1,500 rooms.
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Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that inward foreign direct investment (FDI) flows amounted to MOP 5.19 billion in 2011, down significantly by MOP 17.47 billion year-on-year, on account of increased dividend payouts to shareholders of enterprises that drove up outflow of funds. Analysed by investors' place of usual residence, FDI inflows came mainly from the British Virgin Islands (MOP 8.43 billion), the United States (MOP 3.35 billion) and Mainland China (MOP 2.29 billion); the majority of inflows was invested in Cultural, Recreational & Other Services (MOP 4.25 billion), Wholesale & Retail (MOP 3.21 billion) and the Financial Sector (MOP 1.61 billion). On the other hand, outward FDI flows from Macao enterprises amounted to MOP 965 million, resulting in a net FDI inflow of MOP 4.22 billion in 2011. Inward FDI income earned by foreign investors totalled MOP 46.71 billion in 2011, up notably by MOP 18.36 billion year-on-year, of which income earned from the Gaming Sector reached a record high of MOP 30.90 billion (66.1% of total). Meanwhile, Macao enterprises also registered an income of MOP 1.28 billion from outward FDI. At the end of 2011, stock of inward FDI amounted to MOP 118.90 billion, up by MOP 9.86 billion year-on-year. Analysed by industry, stock of inward FDI in the Gaming Sector reached MOP 67.80 billion, followed by that in the Financial Sector at MOP 25.50 billion and Wholesale & Retail at MOP 10.55 billion. Analysed by investors' place of usual residence, inward FDI stock was mainly financed by investors from the Cayman Islands (MOP 41.08 billion), Hong Kong (MOP 31.09 billion) and the British Virgin Islands (MOP 18.61 billion). Meanwhile, stock of outward FDI by Macao enterprises amounted to MOP 5.38 billion in 2011, up by MOP 972 million year-on-year, with investment in Hong Kong sharing MOP 4.47 billion. Direct Investment Statistics facilitate analysis of FDI profile between Macao and other economies. For statistical purposes, Macao and Mainland China are considered as two separate economies. Coverage of the Direct Investment Statistics included the major industries of Macao, namely Industrial Production; Construction; Wholesale & Retail; Hotels & Restaurants; Transport, Storage & Communications; Financial Services; Gaming; and Cultural, Recreational & Other Services. In 2011, there are 1,993 inward FDI enterprises, with 1,943 engaging in the Non-Financial Sector and 50 in the Financial Sector.
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Co-organized by the Historical Archives of Macao of the Cultural Affairs Bureau and the Macau Alumni Association of Sun Yat-Sen University of Medical Sciences, "Philanthropy in Medical Care - Historical Photographs Exhibition" has received overwhelming response from the public since its opening on November 9 2012. The Historical Archives of Macao has decided to extend the exhibition until December 7 2012 to enable more people to have the opportunity to visit the exhibition and know more about the medical and social development of Macao in the last 80 years. This exhibition features historical photographs, some dating back to 1930s, which document the active involvement of Sun Yat-sen University of Medical Sciences' Macau alumni in the medical and social development of the territory. The photographs are a depiction of the contributions and achievements of respected alumni, such asKe Lin, Chan Mun, Sio Kuan Lon, Io Pat Iok and Tam Woon Yung, among others, as well as an illustration of the growth and activities of local health services. Through this display, the public can revisit the history of Macau's social and medical development and significant medical breakthroughs in the territory. "Philanthropy in Medical Care - Historical Photographs Exhibition" opens daily from 10am to 6pm at the Gallery of the Archives, at Tap Seac Square. Admission is free.
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The Human Trafficking Deterrent Measures Concern Committee, in association with the Academy of Public Security Forces (ESFSM), organized the "Combating Human Trafficking – Labour Exploitation" Workshop on November 26 at the hall of ESFSM. Mr. Zhao Guoqiang, Professor of Law, and Professor Zhu Xinli, Executive Dean of Zhejiang University Guanghua Law School were invited to lecture at the workshop attended by trainees from the Labour Affairs Bureau, Macao Customs, Public Security Police, Judiciary Police and the Academy of Public Security Forces. Topics of the Workshop include "Distinguishing the Crime of Labour Exploitation in Human Trafficking" and "Social Regulations on Labour Exploitation in Human Trafficking". Through this Workshop, participants are given opportunities to learn how to define human trafficking cases and distinguish characteristics between crimes from legal and administrative aspects, as well as the feasible measures adopted to combat the crime.
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To familiarize the legal professionals with the developmental trends of legal instruments for cooperation in criminal matters, the Legal and Judicial Training Centre (CFJJ) is going to organise a workshop under the theme "Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters". This event will take place on December 3rd - 7th (Monday – Friday), from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. in the Auditorium of the CFJJ, Rua do Dr. Pedro José Lobo, n.° 1-3, Luso International Banking building, 18th floor, Workshop as part of the 2nd EU-Macao Co-operation Programme in the Legal Field, the workshop will feature as its keynote speaker Ms. Joana Antónia Ribeiro Gomes Ferreira, Head of Documentation and Comparative Law Office of Portugal's Attorney General's Office, Coordinator of the International Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters Services Branch of Portugal's Attorney General's Office, Attorney-General of the Republic, Portugal. This workshop will be conducted in Portuguese with simultaneous translation to Cantonese. During the five daily sessions, which will take place until December 7th, the following topics will be discussed: 1. Judicial cooperation in criminal matters:
a) Sources and general principles;
b) Key regulatory instruments and its hierarchy: UN (United Nations); EU (European Union); CPSC (Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries); bilateral instruments;
c) The national option for a specific legislative instrument. 2. Extradition and the international surrender of persons:
a) Sources and general principles;
b) The main instruments including the surrender procedures to the international criminal bodies;
c) General schemes of Macao and of Portugal. Portugal's case: one country with various schemes;
d) Practical case discussion. 3. Other forms of judicial cooperation in criminal matters:
a) Transfer of sentenced persons;
b) Transfer of proceedings in criminal matters;
c) Enforcement of foreign criminal sentences;
d) Practical application. 4. Mutual legal assistance in criminal matters:
a) Sources and general principles;
b) General principles and main forms of cooperation;
c) The use of new technologies;
d) Cybercrime. Judicial / police cooperation and collection of evidence;
e) Case discussion. 5. The negotiation and drafting of treaties, agreements and other international instruments in the area of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters:
a) Legislative assessment and the OECD's checklist (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development);
b) The prioritisation of criminal policy and internal security, taking into consideration criminal flows and international priorities;
c) The pre-existing legal framework and the fall-back positions;
d) The explanatory reports;
e) The drafting of legislation: general concepts and language standardisation. The 2nd EU-Macao Co-operation Programme in the Legal Field, which incorporates this workshop, has as its main objective the "Consolidation of the Macao Legal System" and will take place until December 2013. The execution of this Programme is coordinated by the Law Reform and International Law Bureau, with the participation of several other MSAR's entities and public departments, namely the Legal and Judicial Training Centre, the Legal Affairs Bureau, the Macau Economic Services, the Financial Services Bureau and the Institute of European Studies of Macao.
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Local cafés are very common among consumers in Macao, and in respond to consumers' requests to get more information about prices of local cafés, Consumer Council collected prices of takeaway hot milk tea four times during December 2011 to November 2012. Collected prices of takeaway milk tea ranged from $7.5 to $14.0. Prices of takeaway milk tea from 37 local cafés were collected in the most recent survey in November and the most common price range was $9.0 to $10.0, which was about 60 percent of the surveyed prices; the lowest and highest price collected this time were $7.5 and $14.0 respectively, which was equivalent to a difference of over 53 percent. Prices of takeaway milk tea were collected in all four surveys, and the Council was able to collect comparable figures of takeaway milk tea prices from 31 local cafés. Price adjustment was not observed in 8 of the local cafés while 23 of them had adjusted their prices of takeaway milk tea in the past 12 months. Similar results were found in takeaway hot coffee and egg sandwich. In comparison with data collected in July, 3 cafés adjusted their prices of takeaway coffee and the surveyed prices ranged from $7.5 to $16.0. Further, prices of takeaway toast with butter and egg sandwich had also been increased, though prices of takeaway toast with butter at 3 cafés had been decreased by 8 to 14 percent in the most recent survey. The lowest price collected for toast with butter was $6.0 whereas the highest price recorded was $13.0, which equaled to a price difference of over 100 percent. The current survey also collected prices of canned soft drink (Coke) sold at local cafés. Among the 32 cafés which sold the mentioned product, prices ranged from $4.2 to $13.0, resulting in an average price of $8.4. However, according to the Council's 'Supermarket price survey', prices of the same product sold in over 20 supermarkets ranged from only $3.4 to 4.2, which had an average price of $3.63. Prices of the same canned soft drink differ for over 130 percent in local cafés and supermarkets. Consumers are advised to compare and adjust daily expenditure to save money. In order to ensure consumer rights to access information, F&B outlets are called on to clearly and timely state their selling prices of food and beverage items. Consumers are also advised to actively ask for such prices to protect themselves. The abovementioned survey result is now available on the Consumer Council's website (www.consumer.gov.mo).
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The Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) released results of the Survey on Manpower Needs and Wages for the third quarter of 2012. Survey coverage comprises Manufacturing; Hotels & Restaurants; Insurance; Financial Intermediation Activities and Electricity, Gas & Water Supply. This survey excludes the self-employed, as well as insurance agents and brokers not directly employed by insurance companies. At the end of the third quarter of 2012, Manufacturing had 11,074 paid employees, down by 6.2% year-on-year, with those working in Manufacture of Textiles (562) and Manufacture of Wearing Apparel (3,760) decreasing significantly by 30.1% and 17.0% respectively; meanwhile, those working in Manufacture of Food Products (3,173) increased by 7.3%. In September 2012, average earnings (excluding bonuses and allowances) of full-time employees rose by 11.7% year-on-year to MOP7,750, with Sewing machine operators earning MOP3,900 in average. Hotels & Restaurants took on 67,445 paid employees, up by 16.1% year-on-year. Number of paid employees in hotels increased by 16.8% year-on-year to 44,587. In September, average earnings of full-time employees rose by 7.0% year-on-year to MOP11,500. Waiters/waitresses of hotel and restaurant earned an average of MOP8,110 and MOP6,710 respectively, while Housekeeping staff earned MOP7,550. Electricity, Gas & Water Supply had 1,091 paid employees, up by 2.2% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees increased by 4.7% over September 2011 to MOP24,530. Insurance took on 458 paid employees, down slightly by 0.2% year-on-year. Average earnings of full-time employees in September rose by 7.2% year-on-year to MOP20,690. Financial Intermediation Activities had 420 paid employees, up by 8.0% year-on-year. In September, average earnings of full-time employees decreased by 3.5% year-on-year to MOP12,530. At the end of the third quarter of 2012, the Hotel sector reported 2,559 vacancies, down significantly by 51.2% from a year earlier. Restaurants had 2,227 vacancies, while Manufacturing offered 1,332, of which 533 were in Manufacture of Wearing Apparel and 457 in Manufacture of Food Products. In terms of recruitment prerequisites, except Financial Intermediation Activities, the majority of the vacant posts required working experience. As regards educational attainment, 70.0% of the vacancies in Manufacturing and 58.5% in Hotels & Restaurants required junior secondary education or lower; meanwhile, 75.0% of the vacancies in Insurance and 64.3% in Electricity, Gas & Water Supply required tertiary education. Besides Cantonese, 70.0% of the vacancies in Insurance required knowledge of Mandarin and 95.0% required English, while 54.3% in Hotels & Restaurants required Mandarin and 33.3% required English. Employee recruitment rate of Hotels was 9.6% in the third quarter of 2012, while the job vacancy rate stood at 5.5%, down by 6.8 percentage points year-on-year, indicating that some of the vacancies have been filled.
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Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitor arrivals decreased by 1.2% year-on-year to 2,347,646 in October 2012, and same-day visitors (1,232,327) accounted for 52.5% of the total. The average length of stay of visitors stood at 1.0 day, up by 0.1 day year-on-year, with overnight and same-day visitors staying 1.9 days and 0.2 day respectively. Visitors from Mainland China decreased by 1.4% from October 2011 to 1,445,420, coming mostly from Guangdong Province (669,658) and Fujian Province (66,755); Mainland visitors travelling under the Individual Visit Scheme increased by 6.0% to 612,073. Visitor arrivals from Hong Kong (566,342), the Republic of Korea (34,502) and the Philippines (25,541) increased by 1.4%, 26.0% and 1.4% respectively; however, those coming from Taiwan, China (86,274); and Japan (25,562) decreased by 10.1% and 21.6% respectively. Long-haul visitors from Europe (25,339) increased by 3.9%, while those from the Americas (28,643) and Oceania (11,274) decreased by 2.6% and 8.5% respectively. In the first ten months of 2012, visitor arrivals totalled 23,212,331 but the rate of increase narrowed to 0.8% year-on-year. Visitors from Mainland China (13,904,025), the Republic of Korea (365,937) and Japan (344,629) increased by 5.2%, 10.9% and 9.1% respectively, while those from Hong Kong (5,939,416) and Taiwan, China (903,354) decreased by 6.3% and 13.1%.
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According to the statistics released today by the Monetary Authority of Macao, the proportion of international business in the local banking sector edged up in the third quarter of 2012. At end-September 2012, the share of international assets in total banking assets expanded to 83.7% from 83.3% at end-June 2012, while the share of international liabilities in total banking liabilities grew marginally to 80.3% from 80.2%. Foreign currencies were the dominant denomination in international banking transactions. At end-September 2012, the shares of Pataca (MOP) in total international assets and total international liabilities were 0.5% and 3.2% respectively. Hong Kong Dollar (HKD) and Other Foreign Currencies (OFCs) accounted for 39.1% and 60.4% of total international assets as well as 50.1% and 46.7% of total international liabilities respectively. International Banking Assets
At end-September 2012, total international assets went up by 5.2% from a quarter earlier or 19.5% from a year ago to MOP642.8 billion (USD80.5 billion). Within this total, external assets increased by 22.3% year-on-year to MOP493.8 billion while local assets in foreign currencies also expanded by 10.9% to MOP149.0 billion. As a major component of international assets, external loans & deposits advanced by 21.1% to MOP458.3 billion. In particular, cross-border non-bank loans grew by 44.4%. International Banking Liabilities
Total international liabilities increased by 4.8% from three months ago or 22.8% year-on-year to MOP616.4 billion (USD77.2 billion). Of this total, external liabilities and local liabilities in foreign currencies grew year-on-year by 16.3% to MOP313.5 billion and 30.4% to MOP302.9 billion respectively. Foreign currency deposits held by residents and the MSAR government continued to form a major component of international liabilities. This type of deposits grew by 30.8% to MOP283.9 billion at end-September 2012 from MOP217.0 billion at end-September 2011. Concurrently, overseas non-bank deposits expanded by 27.9%. Breakdown of External Banking Assets and Liabilities by Region
The majority of external assets and liabilities were related to the regions of Asia and Europe. At end-September 2012, claims on Hong Kong and Mainland China occupied 33.5% and 26.5% of total external assets correspondingly, while claims on Portugal and Germany took up 11.0% and 2.4% respectively. On external liabilities, Hong Kong and Mainland China accounted for 53.2% and 17.6% of the total respectively while France and Portugal took up respective shares of 5.3% and 3.8%. The compilation of International Banking Statistics follows the methodology advocated by the Bank for International Settlements in order to facilitate Macao SAR's participation in the "Locational International Banking Statistics" project of the international organisation. For enquiry, please contact:
Research and Statistics Department, Monetary Authority of Macao
(Tel：83952532; Fax：28353042)
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The Secretary for Economy and Finance, Mr Tam Pak Yuen, will lead a 19-member official delegation to the 8th Pan-Pearl River Delta Regional Co-operation and Development Forum (or PPRD) to be held in Haikou, Hainan, from 28-30 November. Mr Tam and his delegation will attend a cultural show on the evening of 28 November, and on the following day, he will attend the opening ceremony of the Forum where he will deliver a keynote speech. He will also attend the Leader Joint Conference to be held in Sanya on 1 December before returning to Macao. A delegation comprising 70 representatives from Macao's business sector will also participate in the Forum. The Pan-Pearl River Delta (PPRD) regional co-operation, a concept initiated by Guangdong in 2003 and supported by Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guangxi, Hainan, Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan, as well as the two Special Administration Regions (SAR) of Hong Kong and Macao (hence dubbed 9+2), aroused much attention. Under the instruction of the CPC central committee and with the support given by relevant national departments, the '9+2' governments work together to boost their co-operation and the PPRD region as a whole, and is achieving steady progress. The PPRD, which comprise provinces from east, middle and west Mainland and the Hong Kong and Macao SARs, covers one-fifth of China's territory, has one-third of the population and boasts more than one-third of economic output (excluding Hong Kong and Macao).
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