News

Consumer Council released its November's specific price survey on cooking oil. In the current survey, most surveyed samples recorded both slight increase and decrease in prices. 'Mazola Corn Oil (3.5L)' recorded a price decrease of up to 10 per cent in several retail spots, a price difference of almost 76 per cent was observed in 'Lion & Globe Pure Olive Oil (500ml)'. The Council conducted the latest survey on 29th November, surveying 23 samples of cooking oil from 24 local retail outlets to provide consumers a comprehensive selection for price comparison. Most surveyed samples recorded slight increase or decrease in price; significant price increase was observed in 'Camel Brand Corn Oil (2L)' in which a price rise of over 10 per cent was observed in 3 different outlets, on the contrary, 'Mazola Corn Oil (3.5L)' recorded price drop of almost 10 per cent in 10 different outlets. In the current survey, a general price difference of 10 to 30 per cent was observed for the same product sold in different outlets. The highest difference recorded this time was found in 'Lion & Globe Pure Olive Oil (500ml)' in which the lowest and highest selling price differed for almost 76 per cent; 'Tripod Brand Top Quality Pure Peanut Oil (2L)', however, recorded only a price gap of 5 per cent. The specific price survey on cooking oil is now available online on the Council's official website (www.consumer.gov.mo). For enquiries, please call 8988 9315.
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Information from the Statistics and Census Service indicated that a total of 236 MICE events were held in the third quarter of 2011; average duration of the events stood at 2.1 days; number of participants and attendees totalled 507,661. In comparison with the same quarter of 2010, number and average duration of MICE events decreased by 87 and 0.2 day respectively; on the contrary, total number of participants and attendees soared by 39%. There were 15 exhibitions held in the third quarter of 2011, attracting 483,934 attendees (95% of total), with an average duration of 3.3 days; at the same time, a total of 221 meetings and conferences were held in this quarter, with an average duration of 2.0 days and 23,727 participants. Analyzed by subject of events, 122 MICE events focused on Commerce, Trade & Management, accounting for 52% of the total; besides, MICE events on IT & Other Technology were 30. MICE events decreased by 248 from a year earlier to 771 in the first three quarters of 2011, while number of participants and attendees reached 755,324, up by 29% year-on-year. With fewer events and more attendees, figures on the first three quarters suggest that the MICE sector has optimized to draw more attendees with enhancement of event content. In the third quarter of 2011, data were collected from 12 exhibition organizers (80% of total) and 9 were local enterprises. As some of the exihibitions were organized or subsidised by the Government, total revenue amounted to MOP 9,474,032, mostly from Rentals of Exhibition Booth (54% of total); and Subsidies from Government and Other Organizations (35%). Total expenditure was MOP 24,365,432, with expenses on Advertising, Promotion & Public Relations; and Rentals of Venue accounting for 24% and 18% of the total respectively. In the first three quarters of 2011, total revenue and expenditure of exhibition organizers amounted to MOP 32,506,150 and MOP 44,177,366 respectively. In accordance with the information on 126 exhibitors interviewed, 44% were local exhibitors and 28% were from Hong Kong. Total revenue of the exhibitors amounted to MOP 3,387,116 and the majority (93%) came from Sales of Products. Total expenditure was MOP 2,456,862, with expenses on Booth Rentals taking up 60% of the total expenditure. In the first three quarters of 2011, total revenue and expenditure of the interviewed exhibitors amounted to MOP 9,654,623 and MOP 5,109,056 respectively.
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Owing to the strike action by workers of the public sector on 30 November 2011 in United Kingdom, Macao Post announced that all postal services (including Correspondence, Printed Matters, Small Packet and Parcel) from Macao to United Kingdom are subject to delay until further notice. Thank you for your kind attention.
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Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the third quarter of 2011 expanded by 21.1% in real terms; economic growth was driven by the impetus of exports of services, private consumption expenditure and investment. Exports of gaming services surged by 39.8%, total visitor spending (excluding gaming expenses) increased by 9.1%, private consumption expenditure expanded by 9.0%, investment went up by 5.7% and government final consumption expenditure rose by 6.9%; however, merchandise exports decreased by 4.4%. In addition, implicit deflator of GDP that measures changes in overall prices increased by 7.9% year-on-year. For the first three quarters of 2011, GDP grew by 21.8% year-on-year. GDP growth for the first and second quarters of 2011 is revised downward from 21.6% and 24.0% to 20.9% and 23.4% respectively; besides, economic growth for 2011 is revised upward from 26.4% to 27.1%. Favourable improvements in the job market, further decrease in unemployment rate and marked increase in employment income helped to support private consumption expenditure to rise by 9.0% in the third quarter of 2011, higher than the 8.4% increase in the last quarter. Household final consumption expenditure in the domestic market increased by 9.4%; at the same time, household final consumption expenditure abroad registered an increase of 7.8%, with that in Mainland China amounting to MOP 1.84 billion. Government final consumption expenditure went up by 6.9%, higher than the 6.4% rise in the second quarter, of which compensation of employees, as well as net purchases of goods and services increased by 4.3% and 10.0% respectively. Gross fixed capital formation, the gauge of investment, expanded by 5.7%, slowing down significantly from the 20.6% increase in the second quarter. Private investment rose by 1.8%, of which construction investment shrank by 8.8% while equipment investment increased by 30.8%. Government investment registered an increase of 19.8%, of which construction investment expanded by 4.2% and equipment investment soared substantially by 234.4%. Merchandise exports saw continuous decline, down by 4.4% in the third quarter, decelerating from the 8.3% decrease in the previous quarter. On the contrary, merchandise imports rose by 29.5%, higher than the 24.3% increase in the second quarter, attributable to the expansion in private consumption and visitor spending. As regards trade in services, exports of services surged robustly by 33.5% on the back of rising visitor arrivals and visitor spending, slightly higher than the 33.0% increase in the second quarter. Exports of gaming services expanded by 39.8% and total visitor spending went up by 9.1%. In addition, imports of services increased by 35.7%, slightly lower than the 35.8% increase in the second quarter.
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Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that total merchandise export for October 2011 amounted to MOP533 million, down by 5.4% year-on-year; value of domestic exports (MOP188 million) decreased by 20.9%, but that of re-exports (MOP345 million) increased by 5.9%. Total merchandise import grew by 47.1% year-on-year to MOP5.45 billion. Merchandise trade deficit amounted to MOP4.92 billion in October 2011. In the first ten months of 2011, total value of merchandise export decreased by 4.5% year-on-year to MOP5.59 billion, of which value of domestic exports and re-exports declined by 2.8% and 5.3% respectively; meanwhile, total value of merchandise import increased by 40.8% to MOP49.94 billion. Merchandise trade deficit for the first ten months of 2011 widened by 49.7% year-on-year to MOP44.35 billion; the exports/imports ratio dropped by 5.3 percentage points year-on-year to 11.2%. Merchandise export to Hong Kong (MOP2.42 billion), Mainland China (MOP893 million) and the USA (MOP459 million) in the first ten months of 2011 decreased by 3.7%, 3.9% and 33.2% respectively year-on-year. Exports of Textile & garment declined by 17.0% to MOP1.14 billion; meanwhile, exports of Clocks & watches (MOP217 million) and Diamond & diamond jewellery (MOP209 million) decreased by 30.9% and 64.3% respectively, but that of Tobacco & wine (MOP527 million) grew by 58.5%. In the first ten months of 2011, merchandise import from Mainland China (MOP15.25 billion) and the EU (MOP12.40 billion) expanded by 38.0% and 58.9% respectively year-on-year. Imports of Consumer goods rose by 46.3% to MOP30.68 billion, with imports of Food & beverages (MOP6.97 billion), Gold jewellery (MOP5.16 billion) and Handbags & wallets (MOP2.69 billion) increasing by 36.7%, 96.1% and 117.3% respectively. Moreover, imports of Capital goods (MOP8.70 billion) registered year-on-year increase of 59.6%. In the first ten months of 2011, total value of external merchandise trade amounted to MOP55.53 billion, up by 34.4% compared with MOP41.32 billion a year earlier.
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Consumer Council and the corresponding industry established the 'Code of Practice for Photographic Equipment Supplies and Photo Printing Services' and 'Certified Shops' of the involved industry are requested to abide by this code. The 'Code of Practice' also serves as a guideline in the Council's annual assessment to evaluate the service quality and business ethics of 'Certified Shops' in the involved industry. In order to raise the standard and credibility of 'Certified Shops' and provide better protection for both local and foreign consumers, Consumer Council has established codes of practice for popular retail industries since 2004. Such codes not only became a crucial foundation for the work of consumer protection but also became an important indicator for the evaluation of shops under the 'Certified Shops' mechanism. As demand of consumers, especially tourists in Macao, regarding the price and after-sales service of electronic products and photographic equipments expanded, Consumer Council established the 'Code of Practice for Photographic Equipment Supplies and Photo Printing Services' after consultation and discussion with Macau Photography and Printing Traders Association. This 'Code of Practice' regulates the retail, warranty, photo printing, photography and video services, as well as refund standard for the photographic equipment retail industry. The Council states that 'Codes of Practice', including the latest 'Code of Practice for Photographic Equipment Supplies and Photo Printing Services', have been tailor-made for different retail industries like telecommunication equipment and supplies, jewelers and goldsmiths, and intermediary services in real estate operations, etc., the Council will continue to set up codes of practice for other specific business sectors. Details of 'Code of Practice for Photographic Equipment Supplies and Photo Printing Services' has been published in issue no.218 Consumer Report. The current Consumer Report also runs a feature on a seminar held earlier for 'City Consumer Protection Alliance' in which attending parties gave speeches on the issue of prepayment consumption, as well as the signing of cooperation protocol between Macao Consumer Council and Consumers' Foundation, Chinese Taipei. Consumer Report is now available free of charge at the two offices of Consumer Council, Public Information Centre at Vicky Plaza and libraries. Consumers may also access the resources online at the Council's official website (http://www.consumer.gov.mo). For enquiries, please call 8988 9315.
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Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that the hot Summer drove up consumption of Electricity, up by 18.0% quarter-to-quarter, reaching 1.198 billion kWh in the third quarter of 2011. Consumption of Electricity by Households (269 million kWh) surged by 34.9%; consumption by the Business sector (873 million kWh) increased by 13.4%, with that of the Gaming sector (418 million kWh) rising by 13.0%. Imports of Electricity increased by 22.7% quarter-to-quarter to 1.021 billion kWh in the third quarter, accounting for 81.1% of the available supply; meanwhile, local generation of Electricity (255 million kWh) increased by 12.3% quarter-to-quarter. For the first three quarters of 2011, imports (2.330 billion kWh) and consumption (2.949 billion kWh) of Electricity increased by 6.7% and 4.7% respectively year-on-year, while local generation (782 million kWh) of Electricity decreased by 3.0%. In the third quarter of 2011, consumption of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) decreased by 19.2% quarter-to-quarter to 8,731 tonnes, of which consumption by Households (2,371 tonnes) and the Business sector (6,183 tonnes) fell by 21.0% and 19.7% respectively. Meanwhile, imports of LPG decreased by 15.1% from the previous quarter to 8,596 tonnes, with the average price of imports dropping by 4.4% to MOP9.05 per kilogram. For the first three quarters of 2011, imports of LPG (32,028 tonnes) increased by 9.1% year-on-year. Subsequent to lower prices of imports, the average price of Bottled LPG (MOP13.75 per kilogram) and Centralized LPG (MOP37.30 per cubic metre) decreased by 9.1% and 8.4% respectively from the second quarter of 2011. Besides, the average price of Unleaded Gasoline (MOP11.91 per litre) increased by 1.6% quarter-to-quarter. At the end of the third quarter of 2011, stock of Fuel Oil (19.70 million litres) increased by 27.8% quarter-to-quarter; however, stock of Gas Oil & Diesel (22.10 million litres) and LPG (2,257 tonnes) decreased by 4.4% and 2.6% respectively.
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Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that attributable to continuous increase in total employment, the unemployment rate fell to a record low of 2.4% in August-October 2011, down by 0.2 percentage point compared with the previous period (July-September 2011); the underemployment rate held stable as the previous period, at 1.0%. Total labour force was 346,600 in August-October 2011 and the labour force participation rate reached a historical high of 73.0%, with total employment increasing by 2,900 over the previous period to 338,200. Analyzed by industry, employment of the Gaming Sector and the Hotel Sector registered increase. Number of the unemployed decreased by 600 from the previous period to 8,300, with 16.4% being fresh labour force entrants searching for their first job, down by 0.2 percentage point over the previous period. In comparison with August-October 2010, the unemployment rate and the underemployment rate decreased by 0.5 and 0.6 percentage point respectively; however, the labour force participation rate increased by 1.3 percentage points.
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World-renowned mathematician Prof. Shing-Tung Yau will give a talk on "string theory and the geometry of the universe' hidden dimensions", which is part of the 30th Anniversary Lecture Series, at the University of Macau (UM) next Saturday (3 December). Prof. Yau is recipient of the Wolf Prize Laureate in Mathematics in 2010 and the Fields Medal in 1982, which is the world's most prestigious prize in mathematics. String theory assumes that spacetime has ten dimensions overall. The three large spatial dimensions that we're familiar with, plus time, make up the four-dimensional spacetime of Einstein's theory. But there are also six additional dimensions hidden away in Calabi-Yau space. During the talk, Prof. Yau will introduce the audience to the history of geometry through his first-hand experiences in the field. He will discuss how mathematicians think and approach the world. He will help the audience realize that mathematics does not have to be a wholly abstract discipline, disconnected from everyday phenomena, but is instead crucial to our understanding of the physical world. He will also talk about how mathematics and physics can come together to the benefit of both fields, particularly in the case of Calabi-Yau spaces and string theory. Prof. Yau has made fundamental contributions to differential geometry, uncovering deep intrinsic geometric structures in an astonishingly wide range of scientific disciplines like differential geometry, algebraic geometry, topology, partial differential equations, general relativity and string theory. In 1976 he proved Calabi's conjecture on a class of manifolds now named Calabi-Yau manifolds, which has now become the geometric ground on which physicists build their string theory. His new method of studying global differential equations is so powerful that it has had a seminal influence on general relativity. Prof. Yau is recognized as one of the world's most influential mathematicians under the age of fifty. Prof. Yau received his graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where his advisor was Shiing-Shen Chern. He has received numerous international awards in mathematics. He is currently the William Caspar Graustein Professor of Mathematics and the chairman of the Mathematics Department at Harvard University. He is a foreign member of the National Academy of Lincei, Italy, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Arts and Sciences in the U.S. He has received honorary doctorates from numerous universities, including Harvard, National Taiwan University, Zhejiang University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and UM (in 2002). The talk will take place at UM's Cultural Centre on 3 December (Saturday) at 15:00. It will be conducted in Cantonese, with simultaneous interpretation into English. Please visit https://isw.umac.mo/styau/ for on-line registration. For enquiries, please call 83974339.
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Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that inward foreign direct investment (FDI) amounted to MOP 22.63 billion in 2010, up by MOP 15.79 billion compared with the revised figure of MOP 6.85 billion in 2009, of which FDI in the Gaming Sector accounting for 69.0% of the total, at MOP 15.61 billion; FDI in the Wholesale & Retail (MOP 3.06 billion) and the Financial Sector (MOP 2.12 billion) took up 13.5% and 9.4% of the total respectively. Analyzed by investors' place of usual residence, FDI came mainly from Hong Kong (MOP 9.41 billion), the United States (MOP 5.48 billion) and the Cayman Islands (MOP 5.40 billion). Taking into account the disinvestment of MOP 2.50 billion of outward FDI by local enterprises, Macao registered a net FDI inflow of MOP 25.13 billion in 2010. In 2010, income earned by investors of inward FDI totalled MOP 28.33 billion, an increase of MOP 8.67 billion compared with the revised figure of MOP 19.66 billion in 2009. Meanwhile, Macao enterprises also recorded an income of MOP 735 million from outward FDI. At the end of 2010, stock of inward FDI reached MOP 109.01 billion, an increase of MOP 24.96 billion from 2009. Analyzed by industry, the majority was invested in the Gaming Sector, at MOP 70.28 billion, up by MOP 15.94 billion year-on-year; meanwhile, stock of FDI in the Financial Sector (MOP 23.16 billion) and the Wholesale & Retail (MOP 7.71 billion) shared 21.2% and 7.1% respectively. Analyzed by investors' place of usual residence, stock of FDI mainly came from Hong Kong (MOP 40.85 billion), the Cayman Islands (MOP 23.16 billion) and the United States (MOP 17.66 billion), up by MOP 9.08 billion, MOP 5.85 billion and MOP 5.07 billion respectively year-on-year. Furthermore, stock of outward FDI made by Macao enterprises amounted to MOP 5.45 billion at the end of 2010, down by MOP 2.34 billion from 2009. Outward FDI was mainly invested in Hong Kong, Mainland China and the British Virgin Islands. Direct Investment Statistics facilitate analysis of FDI profile between Macao and other economies. For statistical purposes, Macao and Mainland China are considered as two separate economies. Coverage of the Direct Investment Statistics included the major industries of Macao, namely Industrial Production; Construction; Wholesale & Retail; Hotels & Restaurants; Transport, Storage & Communications; Financial Services; Gaming; and Cultural, Recreational & Other Services. In 2010, Macao had 1,896 FDI enterprises, with 1,846 engaging in the Non-Financial Sector and 50 in the Financial Sector.
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