Daily Archives: January 14, 2022

Traffic flows past gaming resorts at Cotai Strip in Macau, China May 15, 2018. REUTERS/Bobby Yip

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HONG KONG, Jan 14 (Reuters) - The number of new casino operators allowed to operate in Macau, the world's largest gambling hub, will continue to be limited to six concessionaires but their operating period will be halved to 10 years, the government said on Friday.

The announcement, which has been long awaited by casino executives, investors and analysts, puts an end to concerns that the government would change the status quo for the number of operators in the Chinese controlled territory.

The former Portuguese colony is the world's biggest gambling hub in terms of money wagered.

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It massively tightened scrutiny of casinos in recent years, with authorities clamping down on illicit capital flows from mainland China and targeting underground lending and illegal cash transfers.

A casino executive familiar with the legislation said the government decided not to proceed with the proposal for a government official to directly supervise the casinos after feedback from the operators.

The licences of the six operators, Wynn Macau (1128.HK), Sands China (1928.HK), MGM China (2282.HK), SJM Holdings (0880.HK), Galaxy Entertainment (0880.HK) and Melco Resorts , are all due to expire in June this year.

Shares of U.S. casino companies Las Vegas Sands Corp and Wynn Resorts Ltd (WYNN.O) jumped 10%, while MGM Resorts International was up 4%before the opening bell. U.S.-listed shares of Melco were up 12%.

The government said all existing or potential operators need to apply through a new tender process. It did not detail when operators will have to bid or whether the current licence term will be extended, according to a notice posted on its website.

Casino operators must increase the amount of capital to 5 billion patacas ($623.67 million) from 200 million patacas and increase the requirement for a Macau based director of the company to hold 15% from 10%.

Macau's casino stocks lost billions in market value last September ahead of a 45-day public gaming consultation to gage public consensus over new licences.

The consultation focused on nine areas including the number of licences, employee welfare, as well as introducing government representatives to supervise day to day operations at the casinos.

Beijing, increasingly wary of Macau's acute reliance on gambling, has not yet indicated how the licence rebidding process will be judged. To appeal to authorities, operators have tried to bolster their corporate responsibility and diversify into non-gaming offerings.

($1 = 8.0170 patacas)

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Reporting by Farah Master and Twinnie Siu; Editing by Jason Neely, Kim Coghill and Alison Williams

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Macau keeps casino licences limited to six, halves duration - Reuters

183 Macau-invested enterprises have set up in the Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin since the inauguration of its administrative organizations, a year-on-year increase of 32.55%, according to a forum held earlier this year.

As of now, there are a total of 4,744 Macau-invested enterprises in the Zone, covering 17 major industry sectors of the national economy.

By the end of 2021, about 10,000 tech enterpriseshadregistered in the zone, among which there arenearly 800 Macau-fundedorganisations, 328 national-level high-tech companies, and 18 national and provincial technology innovation platformsincluding techcompanyincubators and newtype ofR&Dinstitutions.

Besides, the registered enterprises in the Traditional Chinese Medicine Science and Technology Industrial Park of Co-operation between Guangdong and Macau, have amounted to 216, 52 of which are from the SAR. Also, 25 projects in the Guangdong-Macau Cooperation Industrial Parkhavecommencedconstruction.

Data from the statistics bureau of the zone shows that, from January to November of 2021, the general public budget revenue of the zone hit9.868 billionyuan, an increase of 11.1% year-on-year. Its fiscal revenue has reached 1.576 billion yuan after the establishment. Moreover, its GDP in the first three quarters of 2021 stood at 33.269 billion yuan, increased by 9.1% over the previous year.

Earlier this week, the zone announced that Macau residents who work full time in Hengqin are eligible for a subsidy of up to RMB12,000 for not more than 36 months and a one-time bonus of RMB50,000.

In the document issued, Macau residents with a bachelors degree can receive RMB7,000, those with a masters degree can receive RMB9,000 and those with a doctoral degree, RMB12,000.

The subsidy, according to the document, aims to enhance the benefits for Macau residents in the cooperation zone, as well as encourage employers to recruit Macau residents for employment.

Meanwhile, according to Nie Xinping, director of the Hengqin Office of the Guangdong Provincial Peoples Government, in 2022, the zone will take the lead in innovation of key areas and links of the reform and opening up. It will provide better policy support and make every effort to develop new technology, new industry, new business forms and models, so as to create an international business and living environment and offer broad development space for everyone to start up businesses as well as work and live here.

The zone will also launchpolicies and measures to support the development of Macau enterprises likethe cross-boundaryoperation of commercial registration. Also, it sticks tomakinggood use of central financial assistance support,acceleratingthe formulation of a catalogue of industries enjoying preferential corporate income tax policies, and refined preferential personal income tax measures.

To perfecta talent protection mechanism, the zone is formulating an overallplan for talent development, a catalogue list of high-end and urgently-needed talent, compiling trial management measures for occupation record of overseas professionalsand a list of overseas qualifications. It is also acceleratingthe implementation of the double 15% income tax preferential policy.

The introduction of talent has to be combined with industry, and alsowith the talent plan that Macaois now ready to implement, said Secretary for Economy and Finance Lei Wai Nong, who also acts as the director of the Executive Committee of the zone. MDT/NewsGD

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Cooperation zone sees increase of 32.55% Macau-invested firms after inauguration - Macau Daily Times

Japans number of daily COVID-19 cases stood at 22,045 on Friday, surpassing 20,000 for the first time since Sept. 1, according to data compiled from reports by prefectural governments.

The data also showed that it took only two days to reach the current level after surpassing 10,000 daily infections nationwide.

Tokyo logged 4,051 new cases on Friday, topping 4,000 for the first time since late August, while Osaka Prefecture reported 2,826 cases.

Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura said that he is considering asking the central government to impose a quasi-state of emergency in the western prefecture if its occupancy rate of hospital beds for COVID-19 patients, which stood at 21.5 percent as of Friday, reaches 35 percent.

Okinawa Prefecture marked 1,596 infections on Friday and has been under a quasi-state of emergency since last Sunday.

A quasi-emergency enables governors to request dining establishments to shorten business hours and stop serving alcohol.

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Japan confirms over 20,000 daily COVID-19 infection cases - Macau Business

The nine years spanning 2013-2021 all rank among the 10 hottest on record, according to an annual report a US agency released Thursday, the latest data underscoring the global climate crisis.

For 2021, the average temperature across global surfaces was 1.51 degrees Fahrenheit (0.84 degrees Celsius) above the 20th-century average, making the year the sixth-hottest in the overall record, which goes back to 1880.

Of course, all this is driven by increasing concentrations of heat trapping gases like carbon dioxide, Russell Vose, a senior climatologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) told reporters.

Theres probably a 99 percent chance that 2022 will rank in the top 10, a 50-50 chance, maybe a little less, itll rank in the top five, and a 10 percent chance itll rank first barring an unforeseen event like a major volcanic eruption or a large comet hitting Earth, he said.

Thursday itself saw mercury rise to a sweltering 123.3F (50.7C) in the coastal town of Onslow in Western Australia, making it the countrys hottest day on record.

NOAA uses the 21-year span from 1880 to 1900 as a surrogate to assess pre-industrial conditions, and found the 2021 global land and ocean temperature was 1.87F (1.04C) above the average.

A separate analysis of global temperature released by NASA had 2021 tying with 2018 as the sixth-warmest on record.

Both data sets vary very slightly from the European Unions Copernicus Climate Change Service in their assessment, which had 2021 as the fifth warmest in records tracking back to the mid-19th century.

But the overall convergence of trends increases scientists confidence in their conclusions.

Increases in abundance of atmospheric greenhouse gases since the industrial revolution are mainly the result of human activity and are largely responsible for the observed increases.

Climate scientists say it is crucial to hold end-of-century warming to within a 1.5C (2.7F) rise to avert the worst impacts from mega-storms to mass die-offs in coral reefs and the decimation of coastal communities.

At the present rate of heating, the planet might hit 1.5C in the 2030s.

But its not the case that at 1.4 everything is hunky dory and at 1.6 all hell has broken loose, said NASA climate expert Gavin Schmidt.

The impacts have been increasingly felt in recent years including record-shattering wildfires across Australia and Siberia, a once-in-1,000-years heatwave in North America and extreme rainfall that caused massive flooding in Asia, Africa, the US and Europe.

Last year also saw nearly 700 people die in the contiguous United States due to extreme weather events, such as Hurricane Ida, and a maximum temperature in Sicily of nearly 120F, a European record if verified.

The heat records observed in 2021 came despite the year beginning in a cold phase thanks to an El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) episode across the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.

Heating might have also been partly offset by the resumption of activities that created heat-reflecting aerosols, which were lower during the Covid related lockdowns of 2020, said Schmidt.

The Northern Hemisphere land surface temperature was the third highest on record. The 2021 Southern Hemisphere surface temperature was the ninth highest on record.

Land heat records were broken in parts of northern Africa, southern Asia, and southern South America in 2021, while record-high sea surface temperatures were observed across parts of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

There were no cold records broken for land or ocean areas.

Average annual Northern Hemisphere snow cover was 9.3 million square miles (24.3 million square kilometers), the seventh-smallest annual snow cover extent in the 1967-2021 record.

Meanwhile, with the exception of September and December, each month of 2021 had Arctic sea ice levels in the top-10 lowest levels for those respective months.

Overall, the Arctic is heating around three times faster than the global average adding to sea level rises and the release of more carbon dioxide and methane from the permafrost, an effect known as Arctic amplification.

by Issam AHMED

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Last nine years all among 10 hottest-ever, says US - Macau Business

Top U.S. health authorities have warned that the Omicron variant is so contagious that it is likely most people in the United States will be infected, The Guardian reported on Wednesday.

The Omicron variant, which replaced Delta in less than a month, is now responsible for more than 98 percent of new COVID-19 cases in the country, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

I think its hard to process whats actually happening right now, which is (that) most people are going to get Covid, all right? the British newspaper quoted Janet Woodcock, acting head of the Food and Drug Administration, as saying.

What we need to do is make sure the hospitals can still function, Woodcock added.

Omicron, with its extraordinary, unprecedented degree of efficiency of transmissibility, will ultimately find just about everybody, Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to the White House, was quoted as saying.

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US health authority says Omicron to dominate infections in America - Macau Business

A remote town in Western Australia has equalled the countrys hottest day on record, reporting a scorching 50.7 degrees Celsius (123.26 degrees Fahrenheit), the Bureau of Meteorology said.

Such temperatures could become commonplace in Australia due to global warming, the countrys Climate Council warned.

The coastal town of Onslow hit the blistering high on Thursday afternoon.

NEW Western Australian maximum temperature record and equal National temperature record! the states Bureau of Meteorology posted on Twitter.

Onslow reached an unprecedented 50.7C which is a WA record and equals Australias hottest day set 62 years ago in Oodnadatta SA.

The country last recorded a temperature of 50.7C on January 2, 1960 at South Australias Oodnadatta Airport, according to the bureaus website.

Climate Council research director Dr Martin Rice said the record was part of a long-term warming trend driven by the burning of coal, oil and gas.

He said extreme temperatures were already having deadly catastrophic consequences in Australia.

Heatwaves are the silent killer in Australia, they cause more deaths than any other extreme weather events, he said.

Australia has experienced a summer with bushfires in the countrys west and deadly flooding on its eastern coast.

Rice said that, without a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, such record temperatures could become commonplace in Australia.

In Sydney and Melbourne, we will see 50-degree summer days by 2030, he said.

The Bureau of Meteorology is expected to confirm the record officially on Friday afternoon after quality control checks are completed.

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Australian town hits record high temperature of 50.7C - Macau Business

The scourge of rising prices now ranks among American business leaders top concerns, according to a survey released Thursday, while Federal Reserve officials indicated the central bank is ready to move against inflation.

Official data showed signs the wave of increases may have peaked at the end of the year, but with inflation at its highest level in nearly four decades, more economists and some Fed officials say the bank might have to be more aggressive to stem the surge.

Inflation is the number-two worry among chief executives, behind labor shortages, and the price pressures could persist into 2023, according to a survey by The Conference Board released Thursday.

Im very concerned about the high level of inflation, Fed GovernorLael Brainard said at her nomination hearing before the Senate Banking Committee.

Brainard, whom President Joe Biden nominated to serve as vice chair of the central bank, said most forecasts show prices are likely to stay high for the first half of the year and come down later in 2022.

But she warned to take these projections with a fair amount of caution.

Brainard told lawmakers the Fed will focus on bringing inflation back down to its two-percent target but will do so consistent with a sustained and strong recovery.

The Feds key inflation-fighting tool is the benchmark lending rate, which was slashed to zero at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Many economists expect three rate hikes this year, but St LouisFederal Bank President James Bullard said Wednesday policymakers might have to be more aggressive and raise four times.

Another regional Fed president, Raphael Bostic of Atlanta, said he was open to hiking as early as March.

Inflation has stayed higher for longer than any of us thought it was going to, said Fed governor Christopher Waller, in a Thursday night interview with Bloomberg TV.

Inflation pressures will drop off in the second half of this year, he said, predicting a fall to about 2.5 percent by the end of 2022.

Policy rates had been lowered to a range of 0 to 0.25 percent in March 2020 in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic

Waller said he favored a 0.25-point rate hike in March, but not more because we have not prepared markets for anything that dramatic.

He said he also anticipates three rate hikes in 2022, but if inflation in the second half of the year stays high, there could be four or five hikes.

On the other hand, if inflation falls back in the second half of the year, as many of us think it will, as some of the supply chain issues get sorted out, then you can actually pause, Waller said.

Brainard, however, said the moves would be made in a well communicated way to ensure a measured response by financial markets and allow the economy to continue to recover jobs.

If confirmed, Brainard would replace Richard Clarida, who in a paper released prior to his Friday departure from the Fed argued that the price increases were closer to the banks target than they appear.

The unwelcome surge in inflation in 2021, once these relative price adjustments are complete and bottlenecks have unclogged, will in the end prove to be largely transitory under appropriate monetary policy, he wrote.

The Feds hawkish shift comes after the consumer price index ended the year with a seven percent jump, the highest since 1982, while the producer price index hit a record 9.7 percent.

But the data showed price pressures easing in the final month of the year, with producer prices for energy and food declining.

Producer prices ended the year on an encouraging note, rising less than expectations as both the headline and core PPI moderated in December, said Mahir Rasheed of Oxford Economics.

The Covid-19 pandemic has created shortages of critical goods such as computer chips for cars while transportation snags have further fanned inflation, all as new strains of the virus cause additional business disruptions.

Persistent supply disruptions will pin producer prices near record levels in the near term, especially given a rapidly spreading Omicron variant that will fan inflation pressures, Rasheed said.

The price surge has battered Bidens reputation even as the economy recovers from the damage inflicted by the pandemic, and his White House welcomed signs the pressures might be abating.

Monthly inflation results are always volatile, and this report was driven in large part by a reduction in highly volatile energy and food prices, but also reflects potential improvement in prices for supply-chain related goods and services, said Cecilia Rouse, head of the White House Council of Economic Advisors.

But she said the data underscores the need to continue to work to resolve the supply chain issues.

Even as the economy has had a historic recovery, we continue to face challenges with prices driven by supply chain disruptions around the world.

by Heather SCOTT

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Record US inflation growing concern for Fed, business - Macau Business