Low-single digit GDP growth for 2013: AMCM

The Monetary Authority of Macau forecasts that the city’s real gross domestic product will expand by a “low single digit” rate in 2013. In its latest Monetary and Financial Stability Review, released today, the monetary authority added that Macau’s GDP is likely to have grown by a high-single digit rate, at about 9.0 percent, for 2012 as a whole. Inflation is meanwhile expected to subside “modestly” during 2013, primarily due to a slowing domestic economy and contained world inflation. But significant deviation from the average 6.1 percent level recorded in 2012 is “unlikely in the near future”, says the monetary authority. Macau’s de facto central bank forecasts that the unemployment rate will continue hovering at around 2.0 percent this year, while the number of non-resident workers “is expected to trend upwards at a gradual pace”. Macau’s interest rates, under the linked exchange rate system to the United States, are expected to stay at low levels in 2013.