Mixed fortunes in China's gambling hub
Money is flooding into Macau. The southern Chinese enclave is the only place where Chinese can legally gamble, and its expanding casinos have fuelled a massive economic boom.
But not all its residents believe the wealth is being spent wisely. Many complain of a lack of social infrastructure in the region, where there are more than four times as many gambling tables per 1,000 residents as hospital beds.
A girl sits inside a block of houses in a poor residential area in northern Macau. Accommodation is expensive here, and some residents have complained about the small size of housing units and the high cost of parking.
Youths look out from a park towards the Venetian Macao and Galaxy Macau hotel resorts, part of Macau’s massive tourist industry, which attracted 28 million odd visitors in 2011 – equivalent to more than the population of Australia.
A tricycle driver sits in front of the Grand Lisboa, one of the many casinos that have driven Macau’s economic boom and put the administrative region on track to be the world's fastest growing economy in 2012.
A student practices at a mock casino run by the Macao Polytechnic Institute. The gambling sector contributed 40.9 percent of Macau's GDP in 2010. By contrast, the manufacturing sector accounted for less than 1 percent of GDP in the same period, according to the latest government data available.
A lecturer looks on as a student takes part in a gaming lesson at Macao Polytechnic Institute’s mock casino. Those who go on to work in the area’s big casinos can count on high wages – more than double what they might earn in local small and medium-sized businesses.
A woman searches through a garbage bin in a back street in a poor neighbourhood of northern Macau. The cost of living is high here. Industry data shows property prices have risen by half since 2011, and groceries can cost close to double what people pay for them in Hong Kong.
A student walks down the street in northern Macau. The quality of housing here has come under scrutiny, after cracks appeared on the walls of a 30-storey apartment block in the north of the peninsular.
People walk through a residential area of the densely populated enclave.
Patients and visitors stand outside Hospital Conde S. Januario, the only public hospital in Macau. A new hospital is planned to open in 2019.
Drivers and motorcyclists stop in front of a traffic light on Avenida de Horta e Costa, a main street in Macau. The transport network is overburdened in the enclave, where around 2,400 casino buses operate.
A woman pushes a stroller down a street in Macau, where new property is relatively scarce, according to Juliet Risdon, director at JML Property, despite the 19,000 subsidised home-ownership and social housing units due to be ready here by the end of the year.
Elderly women exercise in a park in a residential area of the enclave.
A man walks past a roundabout in Macau, where gridlock is frequent as a result of the many tourists who travel to the region.
A newly-built, home-ownership housing estate, which rises up from Taipa island, is part of the 19,000 new units that will be ready in Macau by the end of the year.
Story
One public hospital, 36 casinos: Macau's skewed bet on prosperity
A short walk from billionaire Stanley Ho's extravagant Grand Lisboa casino stands the faded pink exterior of the Conde S. Januario, Macau's only public hospital.
Inside, bathroom tiles are stained and paint peels off the walls along the corridors where patients queue to be examined by busy medical staff. The hospital, built in the 1980s, serves the former Portuguese colony's more than half a million residents.
A new hospital is planned, but won't open until 2019. By then, Macau is expected to have added another six glitzy casinos to the three dozen that already make it the world's betting capital, as Las Vegas mogul Steve Wynn and others continue to bet on the only place where Chinese can legally gamble.
Life in Macau, a southern Chinese enclave one third of the size of Manhattan, is geared to gambling, which brings in revenue of more than $33 billion and accounts for more than 40 percent of GDP. There are more than four times as many gambling tables per 1,000 residents than hospital beds.
To many who live in what is both the world's most densely populated territory and fastest growing economy, the priorities are all wrong.
"It's unacceptable. These facilities are a joke. This is the main hospital in Macau," said Simon, who has lived in the enclave for five years and works in the hotel industry.
Macau last year attracted 28 million visitors - more than the population of Australia - and while the gambling industry has boosted general living standards over the past decade, residents say the development of social infrastructure, including healthcare and transport, has lagged behind.
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A fleet of nearly 2,400 brightly coloured casino buses shuttles visitors who commute en masse, stretching Macau's overburdened transport network, causing gridlocked streets and an increase in traffic accidents. This month, one Macau legislator pressed for a limit on the number of shuttle buses. A driverless light rail transit network is in the works, but isn't expected to be up and running until at least 2015.
Property prices have risen by half since last year, industry data show, and surging food prices mean daily groceries for Macau locals cost close to double what people pay in Hong Kong, the international financial hub an hour's ferry-ride away.
"I do see the inequality and the property price increases. Most importantly, I see the inequality gap is widening more and more compared to two years ago," said Larry So, a Macau-based political analyst.
Thousands of Macau residents have taken to the streets this month to call for more welfare measures, more public housing and more action to check inflation. Macau does also have a private hospital, a university hospital and several health clinics.
HAND-OUTS NOT ENOUGH
Macau's government routinely gives residents annual "wealth share" cash handouts, raising this year's allowance to 7,000 patacas ($877), to try to stem public discontent. Last week, the government approved measures to tackle the overheated property market, but industry watchers say it is unlikely to bring down prices to affordable levels.
Juliet Risdon, director at JML Property in Macau, said that despite new housing supply such as the 19,000 subsidised home-ownership and social housing units due to be ready by the end of the year, overall new property supply was relatively short.
"I think it's very disappointing as a long-term resident of Macau, for my friends and colleagues here, that they are continually in a position where they cannot buy property," she said.
HOOKED ON GAMBLING
Macau's transition from tranquil fishing village to casino boomtown has seen dependence on the gambling industry grow despite the government's efforts at diversification, said Jose Pereira Coutinho, a Portuguese legislator in Macau who heads the Civil Servants Association.
"There is no diversification of industry. We are too much dependable on gambling, so if something happens in mainland China, something bad, like SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and people stop coming over to Macau, then the economy is in a mess," he said.
