Word: macau
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...Winners and Losers Many in Macau have benefited from the flood tide of investment and tourism dollars, of course. But the gains haven't been spread evenly and some worry that Macau - which once had a manufacturing sector to balance tourism as a source of jobs - has become a one-trick economy that is dangerously reliant on the gaming industry. Gambling taxes now account for three-quarters of the government's revenues. The industry has grown so rapidly, it is even stunting the development of other sectors by vacuuming up the best talent. Says Lawrence Ho, CEO of Melco Crown...
...Macau is a city that resonates with the sound of money. The nonstop rat-a-tat of millions of gambling chips tossed on blackjack and baccarat tables in its cavernous casinos, the constant thumping from the construction of five-star hotels and luxury apartments and the hubbub of the crowds of tourists who jam the narrow streets of this tiny Chinese enclave mix to create the roar of fortunes being made. This is the sound of one of the greatest gambling booms in history. The casinos in Macau take in more money than those of the Las Vegas Strip...
...there is another Macau, one the high rollers never visit, that sounds plaintive rather than prosperous. Take a taxi from the dancing fountains in front of the Wynn Macau hotel to the working-class neighborhood of Hac Sa Wan, where you can meet Ng Iat-keong, one of the many poor Macanese for whom the casino boom has been a bust. Ng, 45, is a construction worker who helped build some of Macau's hotel-casinos, including the biggest of them all, Las Vegas Sands' giant Venetian. Yet the money sloshing around in their plush suites hasn't found...
...rapid growth has also placed unprecedented strains on Macau's society, in the form of soaring property prices, labor unrest, overburdened infrastructure and discontent among residents like Ng who feel their lives have been made worse, not better, by Macau's renaissance. Foreigners have flooded in with the boom and are competing with natives for plum jobs. Transportation systems have been taxed to breaking point by the 27 million tourists who visited last year. Calls for change have forced the government to scramble to appease a disgruntled public. "The gaming industry has been infiltrating into the community and creating...
...that ratio rose to one in four. Although many of the choicest positions are reserved by regulation for locals - all card dealers in casinos, for example, must be Macanese - the surge of imported staff has led to complaints that outsiders are reaping a disproportionate amount of the benefits of Macau's boom. "We locals are losing our jobs and the government couldn't care less," gripes Chan Chi-wan, a 50-year-old construction worker. In many cases, moreover, wage increases are being offset by soaring inflation, currently running at an annual average rate of about 9%. Frustrated Macanese have...