Number of Passengers to Macao SAR Rises Sharply by OctoberPassenger arrivals to China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) by means of marine, land and air routes reached 7.6 million from January to October this year, which exceeded the overall figure of 1999 with an growth rate of 24.Among the passengers, those from China's Hong Kong SAR, the inland areas and Taiwan and the Republic of Korea showed high growth rates, the latest figures from the Statistics and Census Services of the Macao SAR government show. In October, the number of passengers was more than 781,056, an increase of 22.6 percent over the same month of 1999. Those coming from the Hong Kong SAR and the inland areas of China accounted for 51.6 percent and 25.1 percent respectively. Local tourism officials expect that this year as many as eight million tourists may come to Macao, which is home to about 430,000 people. |
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