Macau to push ahead with 2022 casinos tender

Authorities plan to publish specifications for bidders in 2021 and will recommend that operators extend non-gambling activities.

Macau.- Authorities have confirmed that the public tender to renew casino licences will not be delayed due to the pandemic and that new legislation will be finished next in time for the tender in 2022.

Secretary for economy and finance Lei Wai Nong said the government will publish the specifications for bidders next year.

Some had called on the government to delay the process due to the impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on operators’ finances. In the first 10 months of 2020 casino revenue was down 81.4 per cent year-on-year.

The government has also said that it will encourage operators to “extend non-gambling correlative activities” in line with its long term goal of diversifying Macau’s economy through boosting sports activities and other large events.

The secretary told the Macau assembly: “A single industry gives rise to a single source of employment.

 “For this reason, we urgently need to foster the diversification of the economy in order to gradually overcome the problem of the predominance of a single industry.”

He noted that 75 per cent of Macau’s gross domestic product is generated from the gambling sector.