China State Construction International Holdings Ltd. announced on Tuesday that it had achieved a gross profit of HK$269 million (US$34.69 million) from HK$5.31 billion in revenues in Macau alone last year, increases of 178 per cent and 135 per cent, respectively, on the previous year. This was largely due to the ‘construction markets in Macau and Hong Kong’ continuing “’to prosper in both residential and public sectors,’ it reported in a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Tuesday. “For Macau it is a peak in construction of large-scale projects so revenue was up 135.5 per cent year on year,” said Zhou Hancheng, Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the company, in an earnings call announcing the results. The group was appointed general contractor and investor for Phase 5 of Nova City. The company report for 2015’s annual results noted that ‘projects of Wynn Palace Cotai, Macau, MGM Cotai and Louis XIII Macau [now The 13] are progressing well, and curtain wall installation keeps pace with the progress of the main structures’. “Government’s biggest contractor” The group reported completing a total of 24 projects and securing 41 new projects over the course of the year, with the SAR accounting for 7.8 per cent of an aggregate attributable contract value of HK$70 billion. “In Macau, we have been the biggest contractor for the government,” said an unidentified company representative during the call, predicting that “in the future in the Macau market, we believe that our company can get or can deliver quite good results,” especially following the marine body of the SAR has been fixed by the central government and the company believes the problem of not enough land supply in Macau will be gradually solved. Zhou Jacky, General Manager of Corporate Communications at the company, also noted that as large casino-resorts projects in Macau near completion “the market is shrinking”. However, he believes “Macau construction industry will shift from mainly focusing on the gaming industry to public projects.” ‘The Macau segment has provided a stable contribution to the group’s operating cash flow,’ and the company says it’s very confident about local business, emphasising, ‘in Macau there will be a railway, airport, reclamation and island district medical complex development projects’.
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