Analysts have given Melco Crown Entertainment a boost with their belief that a casino will eventually adorn Macau Studio City. An anonymous analyst, quoted by Business Daily, stated: “The latest gazette entry mentions a five-star hotel and tourism facilities. There are other projects in Macau where that has been used as the basis for including a casino”. The latest gazette entry, released yesterday, included no wording specific to a gambling installation, something that is likely to be key in the thoughts of Melco Crown. The company’s position was further strengthened by “a source familiar with the negotiations”, that told Jornal Tribuna de Macau that “everything indicates there will be a casino at Studio City”. If that wasn’t enough, another familiar with the process added that other “official avenues” are open to the company to make sure Studio City has a casino.
It wouldn’t be a Macau news round-up without some kind of revenue forecast and today’s comes in the shape of a dumbing down by Fitch Ratings. According to their latest report, the full-year growth rate is now 10 to 12 percent, down from the previous 15 percent and the change reflects Fitch’s “more cautious view with respect to the near-term impact of the slowdown in China”. It will mean single digit revenue growth for the remainder of the year and comes after the same agency lowered estimates from 20 to 15 percent just last month.
Macau’s finance department are still buoyant on the enclave’s economy as a whole and are expecting “high single-digit” growth this year. The Monetary Authority of Macau included the statement in the latest Monetary and Financial Stability Review with much of the forecast based on the gross domestic product figure of 18.4 percent for Q1 2012.
