News

The Government will work to ensure strict enforcement of the ban on mobile telephone use by customers at Macao’s casino tables. The Government’s firm stance on the matter – as part of its policy on the gaming industry – was reiterated today by the Secretary for Economy and Finance, Mr Leong Vai Tac. The Government was additionally analysing what action it might take in relation to any ‘proxy’ service that might be offered by a Macao gaming promoter seeking to enable its gambling clients to make bets via casinos overseas, Mr Leong told reporters this evening after a plenary session at the Legislative Assembly. If such services were found to contravene the laws of Macao, the Government would take firm enforcement measures against such activities, he stressed. In general, using mobile telephones while betting in casinos in Macao is prohibited, Mr Leong added. The Government had kept in close touch with casino operators and gaming promoters regarding this issue. The Government had previously clarified that with effect from 9 May the use of mobile telephones at gaming tables in VIP rooms at local casinos would not be permitted. The measure was aimed at further regulating, in an orderly way, the city’s gaming industry. It would assist a better and healthier development of the industry and prevent the possibility of irregularities occurring. It was definitely not designed as some kind of administrative measure to hurt gaming revenue, said Mr Leong. By implementing the telephone ban in relation to table betting, the Government hoped to attract a greater number of general visitors to Macao. This would benefit the city’s small- and medium-sized enterprises and the development of non-gaming offerings at local resorts. Regarding the development of the gaming promotion sector, Mr Leong said strengthening supervision of gaming promoters and increasing the financial threshold for companies interested in entering the sector were the likely major directions for any revision in regulation. The Government pays great attention to the healthy development of gaming promoters and to the opinion from the community on how further to manage the gaming promotion sector. Opinion was sought in particular on how to prevent irregularities that – while perhaps not violating existing laws – were of great concern to society, Mr Leong added. The Secretary said the Government was also keeping an eye on technology trends, and how they might affect the operations of the local gaming industry.
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To enhance transparency of the food market, Consumer Council (or other bodies) started collecting price data of fresh pork and vegetables from wet markets and supermarkets in the second quarter. Collected data are used for comparing the selling prices of the same products from Zhuhai and Hong Kong. For the implementation of Section 2b), Article 10, Law 4/95/M of 12 June, Consumer Council continues its price survey work and expands its work scope according to society’s development and needs. Consumer Council currently conducts specific price surveys on 10 kinds of daily necessities and added fresh pork and vegetables in the second quarter. Prices of fresh pork and vegetables, including those from all local wet markets and supermarket chains, are collected, and average prices of these two kinds of fresh foods are published weekly. The Council also compares the collected data with the weekly average prices of fresh pork and vegetables from Zhuhai and Hong Kong, and the data is available on the Council’s website. The Council states that the price reports on 10 parts of fresh pork and 5 kinds of vegetables enhance transparency of the food market and the comparison on prices of the 3 regions allows relevant departments and consumers to analyze and review on the price level of local fresh foods. The specific price survey on fresh pork is available every Tuesday on the Council’s website (www.consumer.gov.mo), iPhone & Android ‘Supermarket Price Information Platform’ app, and the Council’s WeChat Account page. The price comparison reports on fresh pork and vegetables are also available on the Council’s website every Tuesday. The mentioned reports have been uploaded to the relevant platforms on 31st May. For enquiry, please call 8988 9315.
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The number of crimes recorded in the first quarter of 2016 fell by 7.1 percent year-on-year, to 3,333 cases. Instances of the most serious forms of crime were either non-existent, or extremely low in number. The Secretary for Security, Mr Wong Sio Chak, said the latest crime figures showed Macao to be a secure and safe city; nonetheless, the police would remain vigilant regarding any perceived trend in types of crime, and would update their crime-fighting strategies when deemed necessary. Mr Wong made the comments on Monday (30 May) at a press briefing disclosing the crime figures for the first three months of 2016. The police transferred a total of 1,615 people to the Public Prosecutions Office for further investigation in the first quarter of 2016. The tally was up 15.9 percent from the same period last year. Cases of usury and false imprisonment saw an increase of 55.9 percent and 32.8 percent respectively. An increase in gaming-related crimes showed scant connection to the adjustment occurring in the city’s gaming industry and the notion that such an adjustment might be a negative thing. The police are nonetheless paying close attention to the development of the sector and adjusting their enforcement strategies as necessary. The number of violent crimes reported in the period showed a rise of 24 percent to 181 cases. The rise was mainly due to an increase in cases of false imprisonment and of drug trafficking. Crimes against the person went up by 2.8 percent to 626 cases in the first quarter of 2016. No case of murder or kidnap had been reported to the police during the period. Cases of grievous assault remained at a low level. There was a total of 186 cases of crimes against society in the first quarter of 2016, representing a drop of 27.9 percent. Cases of arson showed a significant decrease of 80 percent. The Secretary said cases of robbery, arson and telephone fraud recorded a significant decrease. This was attributable to the police’s efforts in crime prevention and their sharing of intelligence with the community. The number of illegal immigrants caught during the period totalled 7,431, a decrease from the 8,781 people detained in the first quarter last year. The reduction in the number was a result of closer cooperation with the mainland authorities under anti-smuggling arrangements, Mr Wong said. There were 1,277 infractions relating to taxi services, a 25.9 percent decline year-on-year. The police would step up enforcement efforts against such types of infraction, in order to promote a positive image of Macao as a tourism city. The Secretary also commented on some publicly expressed opinion that the police are overstaffed. Mr Wong said he did not agree with such comment, saying there were many methods by which to evaluate the appropriate ratio of police officers to inhabitants in a city. Factors determining that ratio included a city’s population density; its openness as a society; the pace of development of a city; its complexity; its legal system; and its mode of law enforcement. The police were committed to implementing a new vision for law enforcement that involved enhancing the services provided to the community rather than increasing police manpower. This could be achieved by more promotion of “community policing”; by updating police equipment; and by outsourcing some security functions, Mr Wong said.
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The Macao Orchestra (OM, from the Portuguese acronym) under the auspices of the Cultural Affairs Bureau and under the baton of conductor Jean-Philippe Tremblay, joins hands with French pianist Alexandre Tharaud in the concert The Great Pianist: Alexandre Tharaud and the Macao Orchestra, to be held on Sunday, 5 June, at 8pm, at the Macao Cultural Centre Grand Auditorium. Tickets are on sale at the Macau Ticketing Network. Alexandre Tharaud, acclaimed as a modern “poet of the piano”, was a student of Carmen Taccon-Devenat, who was a student of the great French pianist Marguerite Long. Tharaud won a series of prizes including the First Prize at the International Maria Canals Competition in Barcelona and the Second Prize at the ARD International Competition in Munich, as well as the “Palme d’Ór” at the 65th Cannes Film Festival, and his role as an outstanding pianist in the French film “Amour”, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, made him reach a new level as a performer. With a unique music style and remarkable performance skills, Tharaud has been receiving great critical acclaim from music critics. In this concert, he performs Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor, a piece that fuses German and Austrian musical languages from the Romantic era with Norwegian folk music elements. The programme of this concert also features Ludwig van Beethoven’s delicate Symphony No. 8, which will certainly offer a pleasant evening to the audience. Tickets for the concert The Great Pianist: Alexandre Tharaud and the Macao Orchestra are priced at MOP350, MOP300, MOP200 and MOP100, with several discount packages available. Ticketing hotline: 2855 5555. For more details on OM’s concert season, please visit the Orchestra’s webpage at www.icm.gov.mo/om.
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Macao is engaging further with the Kingdom of Cambodia, including via training and education on tourism. Macao is also exploring potential cooperation opportunities with Cambodia in other areas. The Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, Mr Tam Chon Weng, met in Cambodia on Monday (30 May) the Secretary of State of the Ministry of Tourism of the Kingdom of Cambodia, Mr Tith Chantha. At the meeting a cooperation memorandum on tourism training was signed between the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) and the Kingdom of Cambodia. Monday’s signing ceremony was witnessed by the Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and former chief executive of the Macao SAR, Mr Ho Hau Wah; and by the Minister of Tourism of the Kingdom of Cambodia, Dr Thong Khon. Mr Ho and Mr Tam had arrived in the country on Sunday (29 May) leading a Government delegation for a three-day business visit to the capital Phnom Penh. More than 50 business representatives from Macao’s tourism, banking, trade and other sectors joined the group. On Monday, the “Macao – Cambodia Investment & Tourism Development Seminar” was held in Phnom Penh, to give businesses in Cambodia a better picture of Macao’s business environment, its efforts and strategies to promote the tourism industry, its development path and the role Macao plays in regional cooperation. During the visit to Cambodia, the delegation held meetings with the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia, Mr Hun Sen; and the President of the Senate of Cambodia, Mr Say Chhum, to share views on how to strengthen Cambodia-Macao exchanges. The Macao delegation will return to Macao today.
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Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitors on package tours totalled 575,000 in April 2016, down by 31.7% year-on-year but up by 2.2% month-to-month. Package tour visitors from Mainland China (451,000) decreased by 34.1% year-on-year, and those from the Republic of Korea (29,000) and Taiwan (29,000) dropped by 13.2% and 39.8% respectively; meanwhile, package tour visitors from Thailand (16,000) registered an increase of 34.3%. In the first four months of 2016, visitors on package tours totalled 2,275,000, down by 34.0% year-on-year. Outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 89,000 in April 2016, down by 21.6% year-on-year and 16.9% month-to-month as the Easter holidays fell in April 2015 and March 2016 respectively. Residents travelling on package tours decreased by 27.6% year-on-year to 34,000; those travelling to Mainland China and Taiwan dropped by 36.4% and 37.6% respectively, while those to the Republic of Korea soared by 138.8%. In the first four months of 2016, outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 402,000, down by 16.7% year-on-year. There were 106 hotels & guesthouses operating at the end of April 2016, an increase of 7 year-on-year. Number of guest rooms totalled 32,000, up by 3,800 (+13.6%) year-on-year; those of 5-star hotels (20,000) and 4-star hotels (7,700) accounted for 63.6% and 24.0% of the total respectively. A total of 917,000 guests checked into hotels & guesthouses in April 2016, up by 11.5% year-on-year. Guests from Mainland China (610,000) increased by 16.7%, while those from Hong Kong (115,000) decreased by 8.2% following the continuous year-on-year growth since April 2015. The average length of stay of guests decreased by 0.1 night year-on-year to 1.3 nights. The average occupancy rate of hotels & guesthouses was 79.0%, down by 0.7 percentage point year-on-year and yet up by 2.5 percentage points month-on-month; the occupancy rate of 3-star hotels (83.8%) and 4-star hotels (83.7%) was relatively high, up by 2.9 and 1.7 percentage points respectively. In the first four months of 2016, guests of hotels & guesthouses totalled 3,578,000, up by 12.9% year-on-year. The average occupancy rate of hotels & guesthouses stood at 77.6% and the average length of stay of guests was 1.4 nights, down by 1.7 percentage points and 0.1 night respectively. Visitor-guests accounted for 71.2% of the total overnight visitors, up notably by 3.5 percentage points year-on-year.
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Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that total merchandise export for April 2016 amounted to MOP755 million, down by 20.9% year-on-year; value of re-exports (MOP601 million) dropped by 27.1%, with that of Clocks & watches (MOP49 million) falling by 77.1%; value of domestic exports (MOP155 million) expanded by 18.0%, with that of Tobacco (MOP39 million) rising by 50.3%. Total merchandise import declined by 18.6% year-on-year to MOP5.57 billion, of which imports of Mobile phones and Motor cars decreased by 63.9% and 61.2% respectively. Merchandise trade deficit amounted to MOP4.82 billion. In the first four months of 2016, total value of merchandise export fell by 5.6% year-on-year to MOP3.45 billion, of which value of re-exports (MOP2.92 billion) and domestic exports (MOP534 million) decreased by 3.4% and 16.2% respectively. Total value of merchandise import fell by 21.6% to MOP22.78 billion. Merchandise trade deficit widened to MOP19.33 billion for the first four months of 2016. Analysed by destination, merchandise export to Mainland China increased by 7.1% year-on-year to MOP565 million in the first four months of 2016, of which exports to the nine provinces of the Pan Pearl River Delta (MOP542 million) rose by 7.3%; exports to Hong Kong (MOP2.08 billion) decreased by 9.5%. Meanwhile, export to the EU (MOP58 million) and the USA (MOP49 million) reduced by 29.5% and 27.6% respectively. Exports of Non-textiles declined by 6.6% year-on-year to MOP3.17 billion, of which value of Clocks & watches (MOP433 million) dropped by 24.8% but that of Electronic components (MOP342 million) grew by 52.3%. Exports of Textiles & garments totalled MOP283 million, up by 7.5%. By place of origin, merchandise import from Mainland China (MOP8.23 billion) and the EU (MOP5.42 billion) in the first four months of 2016 decreased by 24.6% and 19.9% respectively year-on-year. Analysed by place of consignment, merchandise import from Mainland China declined by 10.6% to MOP3.53 billion, of which import from the nine provinces of the Pan Pearl River Delta (MOP3.34 billion) fell by 10.4%. Imports of Consumer goods dropped by 15.7% to MOP14.32 billion, with imports of Watches (MOP1.41 billion) and Motor cars & motorcycles (MOP434 million) decreasing by 37.1% and 52.1% respectively. Moreover, imports of Fuels & lubricants (MOP1.80 billion), Mobile phones (MOP1.61 billion) and Construction materials (MOP674 million) declined by 16.1%, 54.7% and 37.1% respectively. External merchandise trade totalled MOP26.24 billion in the first four months of 2016, down by 19.8% compared with MOP32.72 billion a year earlier.
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The 12th China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industries Fair (ICIF) was held from 12 to 16 May at the Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Centre. The Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC) set up the Macao Creative Pavilion, promoting the participation of Macao’s cultural and creative entities, in order to showcase and commercialise their cultural and creative products in the Fair. The officiating guests at the opening ceremony of the Macao Creative Pavilion included the Chief of the Department for Promoting Cultural and Creative Industries of the Cultural Affairs Bureau, Ho Ka Weng; the Acting Head of the Division for Planning and Developing Cultural and Creative Industries, Ho Hong Pan; the Deputy Inspector of the Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Chai Fengchun; the Deputy Director of the Foreign Cultural Exchange Division of the Shenzhen Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau, Yu Zhi; the delegation of the Macau Shenzhen Economic and Cultural Promotion Association and the Cultural and Creative Industries Teaching and Research Centre of the Macao Polytechnic Institute. During the Fair, the Macao Pavilion attracted many visitors, thereby promoting Macao’s cultural and creative entities and their products efficiently. This year’s Macao Creative Pavilion is themed on handicrafts and design. The design of the pavilion featured multiple hues and irregular colour patches, which symbolize the urban vitality of Macao in a distinctive way. The participating cultural and creative entities from Macao included Native Ltd., JE Handcrafts Co. Ltd., Casa de Artesanato Nam Fan Lou, Soda Panda Product Design, Mobiliário Urbano Designers Limitada, San Seng Fung, Fuhong Society of Macau, Macau Creations Limited, Leathership Creation Limited Company and Follow Design Company Limited. IC has been organising the participation of Macao’s cultural and creative sector in the ICIF since 2006, and has launched the Macao Creative Pavilion in 2010, for these companies to showcase their products adequately. Through organising the participation of local cultural and creative entities in the Fair every year, it is hoped to promote Macao’s cultural and creative industries.
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Consumer Council conducted its latest ‘Supermarket price survey’ in May on 30 May for the implementation of Section 2b), Article 10, Law 4/95/M of 12 June. Surveyed locations included 12 supermarkets in Taipa and Coloane area. The latest ‘Supermarket Price Survey’ is now available on Consumer Council’s website (www.consumer.gov.mo), and the ‘Supermarket Price Information Platform’ iPhone and Android apps. The survey is also available free of charge at the offices of Consumer Council, IACM’s Iao Hon and S. Domingos Markets, bookstores and libraries. With reference to the local seven parishes and the number of supermarkets in each parish, the Council has divided over 100 supermarkets into 8 areas for price collection. The Council collects prices from these supermarkets for the provision of a more comprehensive database for consumers to check price discrepancies and make price comparisons according to their desired locations. For inquiry, please call 8988 9315.
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Organized by the Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC), the 34th Macao Young Musicians Competition, dedicated to the categories of Chinese and Western instruments, will be held between 27 July and 5 August at the Dom Pedro V Theatre and the Institute for Tourism Studies (main campus) concurrently, while the Competition for Special Prizes will be held on 7 August, at the Dom Pedro V Theatre. The provisional list of the Competition Schedule is available at the Macao Young Musicians Competition’s website (www.icm.gov.mo/cjmm). Applications for this edition of the Competition ended on 30 April, with over 600 applications received. The order of performance was decided through random electronic selection; all participants must perform according to the allocated order, unless exceptional circumstances are verified. In case of exceptional circumstances which require the order of the performance to be changed, participants must fill in the “Request for Change of Competition Order” and submit it between 6 and 8 June, from 10am to 7pm (including lunch hours), at the Cultural Affairs Building, located at Tap Siac Square; the change of competition order is subject to the approval of the organizer and notification of the participant. According to the Rules and Regulations of the Competition, a few categories were cancelled due to the fact of these categories having applicants less than the minimum number required. These applicants are requested to bring their Macao Identity Cards and go to the Cultural Affairs Building, located at Tap Siac Square on or before 17 June, from 10am to 1pm or 2:30pm to 5:30pm for the reimbursement of the application fees. The final list of the Competition schedule and the list of the members of the jury will be available on 17 June at the Macao Young Musicians Competition’s website. For enquiries, please contact IC through tel. no. 8399 6911 or 8399 6979 during office hours.
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