Macau Chief Executive hopeful wants healthy development for casinos

Macau Chief Executive hopeful wants healthy development for casinos

Macau Chief Executive hopeful wants healthy development for casinosHo Iat Seng wants to be the next Chief Executive of Macau, and that was his big announcement on June 18. But as GGRAsia reports, he naturally had to answer some tough questions about the casino industry when he said he wanted to run the town.

When asked about the industry, Ho implied that the region’s current six concessionaires have been an engine of economic growth. He said of the industry:

“…has pressurised the development of the small and medium enterprises here, because they [the casino operators] have the advantages in land resources and human resources. So we should foster a healthy development of the gaming industry.”

He didn’t want to go too far in making any promises though. When asked if the current concessionaire process might be changed to allow for more licenses, he responded, “Would it be seven licences, or six, or eight? This is not in my scope of considerations until the gaming law is amended.”

Ho generally didn’t want to give any specifics of how he intends to approach the industry, but his positive comments, and teases of having as many as eight or more concessionaires, was telling. His closing comments on the topic suggested he would push for more growth as well. “I won’t comment further here on what the direction should be for the gaming industry,” he said. “But I think the only way it should go forward is to be kept in healthy development.”

Ho is currently president of Macau’s Legislative Assembly, and so far has been the only person to step forward and say he would run for Chief Executive of Macau. That’s not a formal announcement though; those can only be made in July once nominations are over. You can bet that will come though, as he announced that he will be resigning his current roles in order to campaign for the new job.

Ho’s position, that the casino industry should have “healthy development,” suggests he might be a bit more bullish about the industry’s long term chances to grow Macau’s economy than its current push towards a more generalized tourism strategy. That will be an interesting plan to watch, if he can pursue it. The casino sector has not been doing well in 2018, and might not turn around until U.S. and Chinese relations improve.