China News Service, Macau, September 23, title: Macau Scholars: Restarting Mainland Residents’ Individual Travel to Macau to Help Macau’s Economic Recovery
China News Agency reporter Long Tuyou
"At present, the economy of Macau is'healing from a serious illness' and needs more'nutrition'. Restarting individual travel by mainland residents to Australia is a boost to the economic recovery of Macau." Liu Zhiyi, Member of the Legislative Council of Macau Special Administrative Region and Chairman of the Economic Association Said this in an interview with a reporter from China News Agency.
The sudden new crown pneumonia epidemic has brought an unprecedented shock to the global economy, and it is difficult for Macau to stay out of it.
In the first half of this year, the six major gaming companies in Macau lost more than 20 billion yuan (MOP, the same below); from January to August this year, only 3.57 million visitors came to Macau, a decrease of 87% year-on-year.
The drastic decrease in inbound tourists has an obvious impact on a city with tourism and gaming as its leading industries.
According to the "Macao Macroeconomic Forecast for 2020" issued by the University of Macau, Macau's GDP this year may see a sharp decline of -55.7% to -59.1%, and government revenue will shrink to 71.3 billion to 92.9 billion yuan.
Fortunately, the anti-epidemic and epidemic prevention work of the Macau Special Administrative Region Government has been fruitful. So far, there have been 178 consecutive days without local confirmed cases, no overseas imported cases for 89 consecutive days, and no community transmission of new coronary pneumonia has occurred. Macau seems to be one of the safest cities in the world. .
Under the premise that the epidemic situation in the Mainland and Macao continues to improve overall, the Mainland public security organs will resume the application of travel visas for residents of Zhuhai City to Macau from August 12, and the visas for residents of Guangdong Province to travel to Macau from August 26. September From the 23rd, the application of visas for mainland residents to travel to Macau will resume.
It is precisely because of the "long drought and rain" that the Macau SAR government and businessmen of all sizes can't wait to open their doors to welcome guests.
On September 1, the Macau Special Administrative Region Government announced that it would use 400 million anti-epidemic funds to carry out a lottery for hotel and air ticket discounts, hoping to attract more tourists to Macau; from September 26 to 29, the Macau Tourism Office will also be in Beijing Wangfujing Held "Beijing Macau Week" to promote Macau's tourism, commerce, culture and food.
Liu Zhiyi said: “The restoration of national personal travel endorsements to Macau is a safe and positive measure to boost the popularity of Macau’s tourism industry, gradually restore economic vitality and stabilize employment, and increase government treasury revenue. Macau is the first to open the door to the mainland and grasp it. The opportunity to enter the market."
"For Macau, the revitalization of the tourism industry is a key step in economic recovery. The gradual liberalization of mainland residents' travel visas to Australia has attracted'live water' to the Macau economy and fully reflects the country's strong support and care for the Macau SAR Ye Guiping, Associate Vice President of the City University of Macau and Director of the Center for Socio-Economic Development Research, believes that with the arrival of the National Day Golden Week holiday of the National Day and the opening of the new port of Hengqin, we believe that Macau’s various economic The indicators will continue to improve.
Ye Guiping pointed out: “The mainland is Macau’s largest source of tourists. This new loose customs clearance policy may become the economic indicator of Macau’s post-epidemic era, and it is the primary breakthrough to stimulate Macau’s tourism consumption market and economic recovery.”
It is true that boosting Macau's economy cannot rely solely on mainland tourists to come to Macau for consumption.
Liu Zhiyi said that restarting mainland residents' personal travel to Australia is undoubtedly of great significance to the recovery of Macau's economy, but the market economy is determined by multiple factors after all, so we should not be overly optimistic and even expect a rapid "V-shaped" economic rebound.
In addition, under the current special epidemic situation, in order to welcome the arrival of tourists from all over the country, Liu Zhiyi emphasized: “We must strictly implement comprehensive anti-epidemic and epidemic prevention measures, including inspections at major ports, transportation, landscape parks, hotels and other public places. It must be foolproof to ensure that passengers can rest assured and residents can rest assured.” (End)