'Not all feeling benefits of Macau's boom'
Macau residents had reason to celebrate after the SAR's chief executive, Ho Iat-seng, announced that they would receive a handout of 10,000 patacas in the new year, but a senior broadcaster warned on Wednesday that not everyone is feeling the benefits of economic growth. In his speech on Tuesday, Ho said Macau's economy had grown by 71.5 percent in the first half of the year with the return of tourists from the mainland bolstering its hospitality and gambling sector. Speaking on RTHK's Hong Kong Today  programme on Wednesday, however, Joao Pinto, the Portuguese news and programme controller of local broadcaster TDM, said problems remained for many people in Macau. "There's still a lot of concern that some parts of the population are still not benefitting from this recovery," he told RTHK's Samantha Butler. "So [employment] is growing but salaries are not. "There's an attempt for the government to enact a minimum salary law; they have actually increased the minimum salary by two patacas an hour and basically what we have is the continuation of financial support measures that were in place even before the pandemic. "We no longer have those consumption cards that were quite popular in 2021 and 2022, so those are gone." The annual cash handout, which dates back to 2008, was among a slew of tax incentives and social welfare measures announced by Ho in his speech. The CE said Macau's economic output for the first half returned to 71 percent of its level during the same period in 2019.