The government of Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) logged 3.962 billion patacas (around 495 million U.S. dollars) in total revenue in January 2008, up 37 percent year-on-year, the government said.

The latest statistics released by the SAR government showed that a major share of the total revenue for January 2008 came from direct gaming taxes, which saw an increase of 30.9 percent year-on-year to 3.09 billion patacas (386 million U.S. dollars).

Thanks to the booming gaming industry in the island city, which has seen the opening of its 28th casino by the end of 2007, Macao' s gaming taxes grew by 48 percent over the previous year to 29.3 billion patacas (3.7 billion U.S. dollars) in 2007, leading to an overall surplus of 21.8 billion patacas (2.7 billion U.S. dollars) in public finance, according to official statistics.

In its latest research report released Friday, the Bank of China Macao Branch forecast that due to the dynamic development of gaming and tourism industries and ballooning fixed-asset investment in the city, Macao's GDP will keep a growth rate of 13 percent in 2008, which is lower than the 27 percent rate of the previous year.

(Xinhua News Agency February 24, 2008)