Roundup: Macao's Real Estate Industry in Recovery

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, August 16, 2002

Roundup: Macao's Real Estate Industry in Recovery

Real estate, a key economic pillar for Macao, showed signs of sustained recovery in the first half ofthis year as property deals were growingly active.

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Real estate, a key economic pillar for Macao, showed signs of sustained recovery in the first half ofthis year as property deals were growingly active.

According to the latest figures from the Statistics and Census Services, a total of 9,771 property contracts were clinched in the six months, soaring 86.3 percent from a year earlier.

Combined value for the deals also surged 78.4 percent to 5.45 billion patacas (681.25 million US dollars).

Property contracts for the second quarter rose 9 and 7.1 percent in number and aggregate value, respectively, compared withthe first quarter, amid local residents' stronger interest on house buying.

Banks offered 2.49 billion patacas (311.25 million dollars) of mortgage loans for house purchasers, a rise of 15.1 percent, the agency said.

Macao's real estate industry has plunged into the doldrums since 1993 following a boom earlier in the 1990s and at present, vacant houses can still accommodate roughly 200,000 residents, an equivalent to nearly half of the city's population.

The prime time for the sector came in 1987 in the wake of the signing of the the Sino-Portuguese joint declaration, which set the tune for Macao's future and boosted investors' confidence, resulting in huge foreign investment being poured into the city and shooting-up house prices.

After Macao returned to the motherland, the Special Administrative Region (SAR) government improved related laws and regulations for attracting outlanders to purchase housing and settle down, as well as foreign companies to set up logistics bases or subsidiaries in the city.

Property developers slowed the pace of expansion of new buildings. In the second quarter of this year, only five buildingsbegan being constructed, covering a floor space of nearly 4,000 square meters in total. Work on seven buildings was over, with a combined space of 44,500 square meters.

Though the majority of houses were still bought for residentialpurposes in the first six months, industrial insiders believe thatmore vacant rooms in commercial buildings will be filled as the SAR will hopefully lure an increasing number of investors after liberalization of the gambling industry and further improvement ofinvestment environment.

Macao has a tiny area of 20-odd square kilometers, but is home to more than 430,000 people, making it one of the world's most populous cities.

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