Macau Opinion | Small minds

  1. On September 1, I wrote that the IMF forecast for Macau’s GDP for 2017, estimated at some 2.5 per cent, would be far from reality!

Or Moody’s that pointed to a 2.5 per cent GDP decrease!

In October, a local newspaper showed a complete reversal of the IMF’s forecast for Macau’s GDP. Now it would grow 13.4 per cent!

I said at the time that the pace reached in the first half of this year, of 10.9 per cent, could not be expected to be maintained at the end of the year, as a substantial fall in gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) was expected.

Today, it is known that growth in the three quarters of this year was 9.3 per cent in real terms, with gross formation falling 2.23 per cent.

But that decline will accelerate later this year, with GFCF likely to suffer a double-digit decline in late 2017.

If that happens, it is very likely that economic growth will not reach a double-digit rate, despite the continued increase in gaming revenues, and the GDP may be lower than the growth in the third quarter!

  1. President Xi Jinping said recently that “houses are to dwell and not speculate and are essential and non-commercial goods.”

But Macau has not yet realized that its people should live here, and not in mainland China, and that playing at real estate stocks is a bit like playing Russian roulette.

When it is said that residents are in the market, there is a tendency for some to draw the conclusion that all residents are involved in the market.

No, there are few who are dedicated to this business because there are few who have such capacity to play!

I therefore invite the DSF to be more precise.

Many residents pay a brutal bill due to speculation.

In October, the selling price of a house was 16.94 times the price it was traded in the second quarter of 2003!

If we were to look to Taipa, for instance, this value is 19.75 times higher!

If you remove the inflation, improve building materials and other things, the truth is that, even so, this value is an absurd!

Call it whatever you want, free economy, free enterprise, market economy, freedom of the second system, fundamental rights or freedoms, whatever you want.

Here, I call this irrational and predatory phenomenon of the rest of the economy, extortion and institutionalized robbery!