From the Chairman SEPT 2021

Dear Members and Friends of AustCham Macau

This is the tenth article for “AustCham Macau At a Glance” and everything seems to have returned back to the “new” normal after 4 confirmed import / local cases in August.  The average daily visitors to Macau was down to only 13,000 in August.

Changes were required for our events in August, including the Power Hour, which was changed to another online event with David McMillan of Performance Property Advisory providing us with useful information on the current and future of property market in Australia.  Very interesting to see the significant increase in the property value in Australia, especially using the current COVID-19 pandemic influenced economy.

For most of the kids in Macau, school calendar year started on 1 September.  It was always a great time for me to catch up with schoolmates on the first day, specially sharing the the things I did during the Summer holidays.  With the travel restrictions, I guess the kids gathered together more during the holiday, which could be a good thing too.

Our Sunday Arvo which was planned for in late August also had to be rescheduled to 12 September at Sheraton Grand Macao.  We had over 80 people who enjoyed the Hot Summer Day with great BBQ food and drinks by the pool.  Not only the kids who had so much fun on the day, I am sure the adults had theirs too, especially being able to have lots of chats and laughs with their mates, plus great live music by our very own Dr Billy Chan.  Who doesn’t like an event like this?

The Power Hour 15 was held on 16 September, with Helena of Macao Government Tourism Office being our speaker, sharing with us the current and future plans on Macau Tourism Industry, especially the positive impact by the Master Plan of Guangdong Macau Intensive Cooperation Zone in HengQin that was recently announced.  One of the many things I have learnt from the session was “It is different to make a prediction these days especially when all the assumptions change rapidly”.

In accordance with the data announced (19 Sept), there were 346,378 people vaccinated (last article: 296,000 people), of which 302,108 people had their second shot (last article: 242,000 people).  We are close to the 50% vaccination rate, but still far from reaching the required number to achieve reasonable protection.  With the recently guidelines announced by Macau Government on “indoor” workers (either to get vaccinated or get tested every 7 days), I hope to report significantly improved numbers in the next AAG.

AustCham Macau is going to hold a very special Power Hour event with ARTM for supporting all their great works.  Stay tuned for more details.

Lastly, as always, we need your support for AustCham Macau so please join us or renew your membership today.

 

Kind regards

 

Patrick Liu

Chairman of the Board of Directors

Australian Chamber of Commerce Macau