Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | November 2011 34 about Macau is still obvious from a glance at the map. The Macau peninsula occupies the southern flank of the delta where the Pearl River flows into the South China Sea. Within two hours’ travel of Macau are around 60 million mainland Chinese who possess both a deep cultural affinity for gambling and the means to indulge it. The delta region as a whole is one of China’s busiest manufacturing, transport and export centres. Guangdong reputedly has the most yuan billionaires in the People’s Republic. Last year, Guangzhou, the provincial capital—the centre of a metropolitan area of almost 13 million people— joined Beijing and Shanghai in surpassing 1 trillion yuan in gross domestic product. About 40 miles from Macau across the busy sea lane to the northeast is one of the planet’s great concentrations of high net worth individuals—in Hong Kong. Macau and Hong Kong are not yet fully connected by high-speed public transport to Guangzhou and all points north, but the infrastructure is improving all the time. The final 15-mile section of a fast rail link that will transport visitors from Guangzhou to Macau in under one hour should be operational by late 2012. That’s upon completion of the terminal station at Gongbei on Macau’s border with Zhuhai, a city of 1.5 million and a popular holiday destination in its own right. Shenzhen, a port city of 3.5 million, the wealthiest metropolis in China on the basis of GDP per capita, lies just north of Hong Kong and is already connected by rail via Guangzhou to the major cities of the coastal provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang, and from there to Shanghai. IV. Singapore’s Secrets The Singapore government’s rationale for introducing two casino resorts to the city-state is well publicised and very clearly targeted. It wanted to increase annual tourism to 17 million arrivals by 2015, compared to the 10.1 million recorded in 2008. It also wanted to double annual receipts from tourism to S$30 billion by 2015, compared to the S$15.2 billion achieved in 2008. The difficulty is that the government apparently doesn’t want its own people—or the outside world—to know how much of that increase in tourism receipts is being Feature HUNAN JIANGXI FUJIAN GUANG XI HONG KONG MACAU SOUTH CHINA SEA Nanxiong Lecheng Shaoguan Lianzhou Mexian Heyuan Shantou Ducheng Zhaoqing Jiujiang Huizhou Dongguan Shenzhen Zhuhai Jiangmen Zhongshan Pingsha Yangliang Gaozhu Maoming Liancheng Zhanjian Longmen Guangzhou Provincial capital Major road Major river Provincial border National border Guangdong province—Macau’s rich hinterland Table 2.Southern Guangdong GDP 2010 Source: Newsgd.com TABLE 3.Growth in numbers of high net worth individuals— taken from CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets’ report ‘Wealthy Asia—Market strategy’ published in September 2011 Source: CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets Rank City 2010 GDP (billion RMB) Year on Year Growth (%) 1 Guangzhou 1060.45 13.0 2 Foshan 565.10 14.0 3 Zhaoqing 106.59 17.1 4 Shenzhen 950.00 12.0 5 Dongguan 424.60 10.3 6 Huizhou 173.00 18.0 7 Zhongshan 182.60 13.5 8 Jiangmen 155.00 14.3 9 Zhuhai 120.26 12.8 Projections of wealth and HNWIs: 2015 China 1,024.7 1,378 22.4 0.13 8,764 27.2 Hong Kong 6.2 131 8.7 2.12 711 8.0 India 805.6 403 18.5 0.05 2,465 21.0 Indonesia 161.0 99 24.7 0.06 487 30.4 S Korea 38.5 310 17.6 0.81 1,074 21.1 Malaysia 19.2 68 16.1 0.36 329 18.2 Philippines 56.9 38 18.0 0.07 164 22.1 Singapore 4.1 129 15.2 3.12 616 14.6 Taiwan 18.7 136 14.4 0.73 593 17.1 Thailand 52.2 128 21.9 0.24 609 23.2 Sum/Weighted avg 2,187.2 2,821 19.4 0.13 15,812 23.1 Adult pop (m) No of HNWIs 5Y Cagr in HNWI (%) HNWIs adults (%) Wealth of HNWIs (US$bn) Wealth cagr of HNWIs (%)