The Central Bank of China, popularly known as the People’s Bank of China, announced its new move to increase the daily limit on cash transfers between Macau and the mainland. The new regulations could see the maximum daily limit on cash transfers go up to $11,400 from a former higher limit of $7,140.
The initially much awaited announcement was made as President Xi Jinping went down to the Special Administrative Region (SAR) where there were celebrations taking place in honor of the same. That is the party was thrown particularly to commemorating 20 years since Macau was handed over to China by Portugal.
Now according one casino.org news article, is that on the new measure will soon be implemented, and will enable gamblers from Macau to transfer more cash to the mainland. Because of this, hopes are that this new move by the Central Bank will have profound benefits on the gambling industry.
Records or stats collected so far are that most of the gamblers at Macau are from mainland. In the first 8 months of 2019, 19.53 million of the total 27 million visitors to Macau were from mainland alone, this alone has greatly impacted the general economy of the place.
This is more than triple the number of visitors from Hong Kong. The new law could see the number of visitors from mainland increase further, meaning more gambling and hence more income for the island.
Beijing and Hong Kong form part of SAR. It is rumored Beijing is seeking to diversify the economy of Macau by transforming it into a financial center. This will hopefully make the economy of Macau less dependent on gambling.
These news come as Honk Kong is said to have drawn the interest of the Chinese leaders due to the demonstrations that have been taking place there since June, and could probably serve as a warning to Honk Kong.
Other financial institutions controlled by the state have also set base in Macau. It is not long before an equity bourse also sets up I Macau. This means that if Beijing does go ahead with its plan to launch a stock exchange at the island, the announcement by the Central Bank will be beneficial.
This is because it is highly likely that most of those who will trade in the new stock market will be from the mainland. Although the People’s Bank did not mention integrated resort owners in its new law, its news seemed to have a positive impact on them as well. On that very Wednesday, the stocks of three of the largest casino operators in Macau went up, as a result of this.
Confirmed reports say Las Vegas Sands went up by 1.11 percent while those of Wynn Resorts shot up by not less than 4 percent. Melco Resorts was not left behind as its shares climbed by 3.79 percent. This was not by surprise as Melco shares have gone up by 13.31 percent last week alone.
