Macau’s Secretary for Economy and Finance, Tai Kin Ip, said Friday that the current government is concerned about the non-gaming investment plans of the city’s concessionaires and will review their implementation.
During scrutiny of the 2023 budget implementation report by the Macau Legislative Assembly on Friday, some members expressed concern about the actual amount of non-gaming investments by concessionaires and asked whether the actual amount of non-gaming investments per year should be included in the budget implementation report, so as to make the relevant data public.
In response, the Secretary said that non-gaming investment was a matter of negotiation between the government and concessionaires.
“Each year, concessionaires are required to submit to the government the implementation status of the previous year by 31 March and the investment plan for the coming year by 30 September.
“The government does monitor the investment situation on an ongoing basis and has engaged a third-party organization to monitor the investment in 2023.
“The sixth-term government is very concerned about non-gaming investments and has already started to review the implementation of non-gaming investments.”
Tai added that according to the law, the government will review the implementation of non-gaming investments by concessionaires every three years.
“The six concessionaires are obliged to make good use of their investment plans,” he said.
Macau’s current gaming concession contracts stipulate that the six concessionaires are required to invest a combined MOP$108.8 billion (US$13.6 billion) into non-gaming elements over the 10-year concession period.
This amount was increased by 20% to MOP$130.4 billion (US$16.3 billion) in 2023 as per a stipulation that the required investment level would rise if gross gaming revenues surpassed MOP$180 billion (US$22.5 billion. GGR in 2023 reached MOP$183.1 billion (US$22.9 billion).
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