Chief executive Ho Iat Seng has addressed concerns over austerity measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Macau.- Ho Iat Seng<\/strong>, Macau’s chief executive, has forecast that the city’s gaming revenue for 2023 could reach MOP180bn (US$22.3bn). His comment was made during a special session at the Legislative Assembly, in which Ho addressed concerns about ongoing austerity measures stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ho said that the government still expects a budget deficit in 2023, unless gaming taxes reach MOP230bn (US$28.5bn). In response to concerns raised by legislator Agnes Lam, Ho said that while the government seeks a 5 per cent reduction in departmental expenses, livelihood benefits, including for education and medical expenses, would remain untouched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For full-year 2022<\/a>, Macau\u2019s casino GGR\u00a0decreased by 51.4 per cent<\/strong>\u00a0year-on-year to MOP42.19bn (US$5.25bn). In the first half of 2023, GGR amounted to MOP96.8bn (US$12bn) \u2013 61 per cent of\u00a0the government’s full-year prediction<\/a>. The figure was 55.6 per cent of the volume recorded in H1 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chief executive Ho Iat Seng has addressed concerns over austerity measures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":25147,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Macau's Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng forecasts MOP180bn (US$22.3bn) in 2023 gaming revenue, acknowledging a budget deficit unless gaming taxes reach MOP230bn. Despite a 5% departmental expense reduction, livelihood benefits remain untouched, with H1 2023 GGR already at 61% of the full-year prediction.","focusai_entities":"Ho Iat Seng, Agnes Lam, Legislative Assembly","focusai_location":"Macau","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.9), operator_casino (1.0), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"GGR Forecast Impact","query":"How might the projected MOP180bn GGR for 2023, coupled with the potential budget deficit, influence future concession terms or regulatory adjustments for Macau operators?"},{"label":"Fiscal Policy Implications","query":"What specific austerity measures, beyond the 5% departmental expense reduction, could be implemented if gaming taxes fail to meet the MOP230bn target, and how would these affect the broader economic environment for gaming businesses?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16338,163,158],"tags":[23906],"class_list":["post-777008148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-asia-news","category-finance-news","category-slider-home","tag-macau-casinos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777008148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777008148"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777008148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777008183,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777008148\/revisions\/777008183"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777008148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777008148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777008148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}