Macau’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) posted a year-on-year contraction of 4.7% in January to 434.7 billion patacas (US$54.337 billion), the region’s Statistics and Census Bureau (DSEC) said.

Per capita GDP at current prices dropped by 6.6% to 645,438 patacas (approximately US$79,977), and the implicit GDP deflator, which measures global price variation, registered increases of 2.6% in 2019 and 2.5% in the fourth quarter.

DSEC added the contraction recorded was due to drops in investment and exports of services, which recorded negative growth since the first quarter of the year under review.

Domestic demand had a negative performance, with an annual retraction of 4.6%, notably a drop of 20.1% in gross fixed capital formation, caused by a substantial decrease in private sector investment in construction.

Private consumption expenditure became more cautious, contracting 2.9% given the uncertainty of the economic outlook, despite increases, both in the total number of employees and in income from employment.

Final consumption expenditure of the government noted an annual increase of 3.9%, or +0.4 percentage points compared to 2018, including on year increases of 2.4% on the remuneration of employees and 5.7% in net purchases of goods and services.

DSEC also mentioned the on year drops of 4.0% in exports of gaming services and 5.7% in exports of other tourist services and 8.3% in exports of goods.

In the fourth quarter of 2019, Gross Domestic Product registered an annual 8.1% contraction in real terms, a higher percentage than in the third quarter, mainly due to the gradual decrease of exports of services.

External demand continues to slow, with exports of services falling by 7.5% on year, driven mainly by the year on year decreases of 9.8% in gaming services exports and 7.0% in exports of other tourist services.

DSEC also said it had increased its forecast for the rate of real growth in GDP for the third quarter of 2019 to -4.4%. (macauhub)