Macau’s leader warned on Monday that the gambling hub would be in the red for the first time in two decades this year as the Covid-19 pandemic had pushed down gaming revenue by about 60 per cent in the first quarter while traveller numbers had been down by more than half in the first two months of the year. Ho Iat-seng, who was sworn in as the city’s chief executive last December, however said the coronavirus situation in Macau was now “basically under control” and revealed plans to ease some border restrictions to boost the city’s tourism by next month. Making his maiden policy address at the legislature on Monday, the lawmaker-turned-chief executive said: “Because of the use of countercyclical fiscal measures … to assure jobs, stabilise economy and safeguard people’s livelihood … this year we will see for the first time since the [1999] handover a deficit.” He said the government would spend more than 50 billion patacas (US$6.27 billion)– about 12 per cent of its GDP – in relief measures to ease the impacts of the pandemic on the people’s livelihood and the businesses, including giving out shopping vouchers worth a total of 8,000 patacas to its residents and waiving electricity and water bills for three months. These were in addition to a cash handout of 10,000 patacas for each permanent resident and 6,000 patacas for each non-permanent resident to be given away this month. Ho also noted that the pandemic had exposed the “vulnerability and risks” of Macau economy’s overreliance on gaming tourism. Because of the border restrictions and business shutdowns amid the public health crisis, the number of tourists Macau received in January and February was only slightly more than 3 million, down 56.9 per cent year on year, while gaming revenue for the first three months of the year also saw a 60 per cent year-on-year fall, to about 30.49 billion patacas, Ho told the legislature. Macau will give residents 2.2 billion patacas worth of vouchers to boost economy Overall unemployment rate was 1.9 per cent for the period between December and February, up 0.2 percentage point from the November-to-January period. In a press conference after the policy address, Ho said the pandemic situation in Macau was basically under control and there had not been a new case in the last 12 days. He said: “If we can maintain zero new cases until the end of the month, I think we can say the situation has stabilised … and hopefully we can see signs to go back to normal life.” Ho said Macau was keeping contact with mainland authorities and Hong Kong for reviewing the border restrictions and hoped mainlanders would be able to go there very soon to boost the gambling hub’s tourism. Macau’s calm handling of coronavirus crisis puts Hong Kong panic in perspective During his 90-minute address, Ho also stressed the importance of diversifying the gambling hub’s economy. “Some structural and deep-seated problems are starting to emerge and affect the sustainable development of society and the economy,” he said. Ho is expected to attend a session at the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday to answer lawmakers’ questions. Macau pro-democracy legislator Au Kam-san described many of Ho’s ideas as “old wine in a new bottle”, saying he had just repeated the old clichés of his predecessors. “Ho’s plan to ease border controls to allow more visitors to enter is also just wishful thinking,” he said. “Even if the Covid-19 situation stabilises, do you think many people will start travelling soon after such a big crisis that has hit the economy so gravely?”