Macau Sees Surge in Bond Listings in Pivot Away From Gambling

Macau is hosting a record amount of bond listings as the world's top gambling hub boosts efforts to diversify its economy and establish itself as an alternative financing hub for Chinese companies.

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A combined US$28.1 billion (S$38.1 billion) of bonds have started trading in 2024 on the Chongwa (Macau) Financial Asset Exchange (MOX), according to Bloomberg-compiled data. Around 63 per cent of these new notes are yuan-denominated and mostly issued by Chinese local government financing vehicles (LGFVs).

The tally marks significant progress for MOX, where bond listings totalled slightly over US$600 million at its inception in 2018, thanks to Macau's initiatives to make debt registration cheaper and simpler than at major Asian financial centres, including Hong Kong and Singapore. The latest boom has also benefited from a broader surge in offshore debt issuance by China's LGFVs that face domestic borrowing restrictions.

"We are still at the nascent stage. We need to do a lot more to build up the pool of investors and issuers here," Ms Henrietta Lau, executive director of the Monetary Authority of Macau, said in an interview. "Our aim is to build the bond market as a financing bridge between the mainland and the outside world."