The city’s Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) said it expects that a new set of data collected from Macau firms’ investment in Mainland China can be publicised next year, alongside the department’s initiatives to collect and publicise information on economic values of the so-called emergent sectors that include meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (MICE) plus the cultural and creative industries. The news was released by the new director of the DSEC, Paul Ieong Meng Chao, who spoke to media on the sidelines of his inauguration ceremony confirming him in the department’s top post yesterday. “We are already in contact with the National Bureau of Statistics of China as well as its division in Guangdong, which we hope can help co-ordinate with their counterparts in other provinces to gather the statistics of Macau firms’ investment in the Mainland,” Mr. Ieong told media. “That information will be represented in our GNI [gross national income] figure, and we hope that by next year we can already see this updated information.” This new initiative to collect information on Macau firms’ investment in China can help the government assess its regional trade co-operation, Mr. Ieong said in his inauguration speech. Currently, the available overall statistics of Macau investments in Mainland China are published by the state’s Ministry of Commerce on a monthly basis. At the event yesterday, Mr. Ieong also announced that his department has targeted the release of preliminary data of the economic values of the city’s “emergent” sectors starting by this year-end, namely the sectors of MICE, cultural and creative industries, and Chinese medical practice. “Take MICE, for instance; we’ll also study their influence on other related industries, such as on hotels and visitors,” he told media. “For cultural and creative industries, now we’re still studying our investigative scope of them at the moment,” the new DSEC director said. “We’ll announce later how we define the industries.” S.L.
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