According to the statistics released today by the Monetary Authority of Macao, on 31 December 2018, investment of Macao residents (including individuals, the government and other legal entities but excluding Macao’s foreign exchange reserves) in securities issued by unrelated non-residents reached MOP684.5 billion at current market value, representing a decline of 1.8% from end-June 2018 but a rise of 2.9% from end-2017. Among the various instruments of portfolio investment, equity securities (including mutual funds and investment trust units), long-term debt securities and short-term debt securities were valued at MOP237.1 billion, MOP428.3 billion and MOP19.1 billion respectively. As compared with end-2017, equity securities and short-term debt securities dropped by 1.0% and 34.4% respectively, whereas long-term debt securities rose by 8.0%.

By geographical distribution, the Asian region continued to occupy the largest share of Macao residents’ external portfolio investment, at 59.1%. The rest was mainly placed in the North Atlantic and Caribbean (18.4%), Europe (10.8%), North America (9.0%) and Oceania (2.3%).

Investment in securities issued by Mainland Chinese entities, including those securities listed on non-Mainland exchanges, continued to assume the leading position, occupying 41.6% of local residents’ portfolio investment outside Macao. Its market value decreased by 0.4% from end-2017 to MOP284.6 billion. The investment consisted of MOP77.2 billion in equity securities, MOP193.0 billion in long-term debt securities and MOP14.3 billion in short-term debt securities, taking up 32.6%, 45.1% and 74.9% of the respective total. Meanwhile, the share of investment in securities issued by Hong Kong SAR entities rose from 12.6% to 13.1%; the corresponding market value grew by 6.5% to MOP89.3 billion, of which equity securities and long-term debt securities amounted to MOP48.7 billion and MOP39.2 billion respectively.

Macao residents’ portfolio investment in the North Atlantic and Caribbean continued to increase. The market value of investment in this region rose by 25.9% from end-2017 to MOP126.1 billion, with its share in the total securities investment abroad increasing from 15.1% to 18.4%; the market value of portfolio investment in the British Virgin Islands grew by 22.0% to MOP61.0 billion.

Investment in European securities dropped by 0.9 percentage points to 10.8% in share and decreased by 4.7% to MOP74.1 billion in market value from end-2017. Among the European countries, portfolio investment in the United Kingdom, Luxembourg and Ireland took up larger portions, which was valued at MOP19.7 billion, MOP13.8 billion and MOP8.1 billion respectively.

The bulk of investment in North America was placed in the United States. The market value of Macao residents’ investment in US securities dropped by 16.2% from end-2017 to MOP55.5 billion while its share in the total portfolio investment abroad decreased from 10.0% to 8.1%.

The market value of Macao residents’ investment in countries along the “Belt and Road” (excluding Mainland China) rose by 5.9% from end-2017 to MOP22.8 billion, equivalent to 3.3% of the total portfolio investment abroad. Meanwhile, the market value of portfolio investment in Portuguese-speaking countries was MOP113.9 million, which was placed in securities issued by entities in Brazil and Portugal.

The compilation of Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey (CPIS), jointly conducted by the Monetary Authority of Macao (AMCM) and the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC), follows the methodology advocated by the International Monetary Fund.