Macau’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 116.1% year-on-year in real terms in the third quarter of 2023, and by 77.7% from January to September combined, according to information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC).
Macau-wide GDP had contracted by 21.5% in 2022.
The GDP growth in Q3 was mainly attributable to the strong performance of service exports, DSEC explained. This was attributable to an 820% year-on-year increase in visitor arrivals to 8.28 million, which was 83.5% of visitation during the same period in 2019. Exports of gaming services and other tourism services expanded by 781.4% and 255.4% respectively.
Private construction investment increased by 61.5% year-on-year in the third quarter, while private investment in equipment increased by 39.0%, mainly due to increased investment by Macau’s concessionaires.
Overall private consumption expenditure grew by 29.6% year-on-year, accelerating further from the second quarter. Local consumption expenditure by households also increased by 22.4%, while consumption expenditure by households outside of Macau rose by 138.7%.
For the first three quarters of 2023 combined, exports of services rose by 156.5%, with exports of gaming services up by 308.8%. Imports of services grew by 40.9%.
The September 2023 quarter saw total visitor spending excluding gaming increase by 580% year-on-year to MOP$19.60 billion (US$2.45 billion) in Q3, representing an increase of 28.9% compared with the same period in 2019. Total visitor spending for the first three quarters from January to September totalled MOP$52.06 billion (US$6.49 billion), representing an increase of 290% year-on-year and an increase of 8.8% when compared with the first three quarters of 2019.
In terms of the main purpose of visitor arrivals, MICE visitors spent MOP$5,072 per capita in Q3, a 31.4% year-on-year increase, while holidaymakers spent MOP$2,848 less per capita.
According to the third quarter visitor evaluation summary, 82.2% of visitors rated gaming venues as satisfactory, an increase of 1.1 percentage points quarter-on-quarter.