Macau gaming operators may host two sports events per year

The local government aims to boost the economy holding at least one major sporting event every month in 2021.

Macau.- Chief executive Ho Iat Seng has announced that each of the six large gaming operators in the city will be able to host or title sponsor two major sports tournaments or competitions a year.

Sports has been identified as keys to the diversification of Macau’s economy and the government’s aims for the city to host at least one major sport event per month.

Ho Iat Seng said in a response to lawmaker Ma Chi Seng that he has a proposal to reach that goal and hinted that an agreement had been reached with the six largest gaming operators in the city, Macau Daily Times reported.  

The CE said: “We have been talking to the gaming concessionaires to organize two of these events for each one. This means 12 events per year that will be held not concurrently, but tentatively one per month.

“The gaming concessionaires provided a positive response and from the end of this year, we are already doing some events that are possible to host like the Marathon and the World Table Tennis Championships,” he added.

The proposal has a list of potential events the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, Elsie Ao Ieong U, has already delivered.

The authorities recognise that in the current context it is hard to anticipate if international players and tourists will be able to attend such events. The Macau GP has cancelled parts of this year’s event due to a lack of international contestants.

Ho said: “All these events are of a large scale and have many participants from abroad. I need to give a reply to Ao Ieong U but this is difficult.”

Hosting such events is aimed to boost Macau’s economy, which is expected to lose 60.9 per cent of GDP this year.