Macau, China, Oct. 30, 2025 (Lusa) – Macau’s financial reserve assets totalled 653.2 billion patacas (€70.4 billion) in August, the highest figure for more than four years, it was announced on Thursday.
According to a balance sheet published in the semi-autonomous region’s Official Gazette by the Monetary Authority of Macau (AMCM), the reserve is at its highest level since June 2021: 656.8 billion patacas (€70.8 billion).
Even so, it remains short of the all-time record of 663.6 billion patacas (€71.5 billion), reached at the end of February 2021, despite the territory being in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The reserve started 2025 on a high, with the value of assets rising by 37 billion patacas (€3.99 billion) in the first eight months. In August alone, the reserve gained 3.05 billion patacas (€328.8 million).
Official figures show that this is the best start to the year since the first eight months of 2018, when the reserve appreciated by 63.4 billion patacas (€6.84 billion).
According to the AMCM, the reserve had recorded its best year since the pandemic in 2024, gaining 35.7 billion patacas (€3.85 billion).
This was the highest annual increase since 2019, when the value of the reserve rose by 70.6 billion patacas (€7.61 billion).
The value of the extraordinary reserve at the end of August this year was 456.5 billion patacas (€49.2 billion), and the basic reserve, equivalent to 150% of Macau’s public budget, was 167.3 billion patacas (€18 billion).
The territory’s initial budget for 2025 foresaw a 7% increase in total spending, to 109.4 billion patacas (€11.8 billion).
But in July, the Legislative Assembly, Macau’s parliament, approved a government proposal for a new budget that includes an extra 2.86 billion patacas (€308.4 million) in spending.
Outsourced investments account for the largest share of Macau’s financial reserve, 277 billion patacas (€29.9 billion), which also includes deposits and current accounts worth 258.5 billion patacas (€27.9 billion) and even bonds worth 114.8 billion patacas (€12.4 billion).
In 2024, the investments earned the financial reserve almost 31 billion patacas (€3.34 billion), corresponding to a rate of return of 5.3%, the AMCM said at the end of February.
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