Inside Asian Gaming

IAG AUG 2022年8月 亞博匯 43 封面故事 of that is due to the political obsequiousness of the Macau government to its mainland overlords, but there is a practical reason too – Macau traditionally relies on the mainland for some 60% of its visitation and some 90% of its GGR, so there is a commercial pressure to align its approach with that of its dominant feeder market. At under 700,000 population, Macau is but a pimple compared to the 1.4 billion-strong mainland China, and on top of that the mainland correctly perceives Macau as rolling in cash because of the extended boom of the 2000s and 2010s, so the PRC isn’t going to take Macau into account one iota in its decision-making process when it comes to relaxing the COVID-zero policy. While markets like the Philippines, Singapore, Australia and the rest of the Asia-Pacific region are all opening their borders, putting COVID behind them and even starting to see a boom in “revenge travel,” there is no end in sight to China’s COVID- zero policy. China and its two SARs of Hong Kong and Macau are starting to look like global outliers – increasingly and perplexingly so – in the eyes of the rest of the world. 如果不向澳門政府和全球投資界發出這 樣的信號，可能會令他們的公司陷入災 難性的後果。 澳門桎梏之一：清零政策 事實早已證明，澳門對疫情實施的 清零政策，所導致的後果就是經濟清零。 當全球其他地區都學會如何與病毒 共存時，中國內地卻依舊採取嚴格的清 零政策。內地為首，澳門緊隨其後，這 很大程度上是出於澳門政府在政治上對 內地統治者的奉承，但同時也有一個現 實的原因，即傳統上澳門六成的遊客及 九成的博彩總收入都依賴於中國內地， 因此澳門面臨著一種必須與其主要客流 市場保持一致的商業壓力。 與中國內地14億人口相比，澳門人 口僅有不到70萬，冰山一角。更重要的 是，由於本世紀前20年的持續繁榮，內 地認為澳門並不缺錢，所以中國在制定 清零政策的決策過程中，並不會將澳門 考慮在內。 儘管菲律賓、新加坡、澳洲和亞太 其他地區等市場都在開放邊境，將新冠 病毒拋諸腦後，甚至開始出現「報復式 旅行」的熱潮，但中國的清零政策仍望 不到盡頭。在全球其他國家和地區的眼 中，中國及其兩個特別行政區香港和澳 門，正在被看成全球的異類，並且越來 越令人費解。