THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT FORECASTS A 70% CONTRACTION OF MACAU’S ECONOMY IN 2020; RECOVERY IN LATE 2021

THE Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) forecasts a 69.8% contraction of Macau’s economy this year, “the most severe contraction in Macau’s history, owing to the impact of the coronavirus.”

In its latest report on Macau’s economy, the EIU highlights the June 18 figures released by the Statistics and Census Service on tourist arrivals data, which showed that visitor arrivals fell 99.5% in year-on-year terms.

“Given the poor gambling and tourism figures published for April-may and the recent imposition of fresh controls on travelers from Beijing, Macau’s second-quarter economic performance will be dire,” the report states.

“We maintain our forecast that the economy will enter deep double-digit contraction in 2020, with a resumption in economic performance (to pre-crisis levels) unlikely until late 2021.”

The EIU currently estimates gross domestic product (GDP) output in Macau to drop nearly 70% in 2020, bouncing back to 31% growth in 2021.

“An economic recovery will start to build in 2021, although the pace of expansion that year […] will primarily reflect a low base of annual comparison. We do not expect tourism or gambling levels to return to pre-crisis levels until 2022 at the earliest.”

According to official data, the Macau economy shrank by 4.7% in real terms in 2019, marking the first full year of negative growth since 2016. In 2017 and 2018 the economy grew at a rate of 9.1% and 4.7% respectively.