Macau feeling the effects of gambling boom

A surge in Macau’s population spurred by the boom in its casino industry is bringing increasing growing pains to the Chinese territory, government officials said.
According to official statistics, the population of the former Portuguese colony, already the most densely populated place in the world, rose by 4.98 per cent in the 12 months ending in June and now stands at 551,900.
The Statistics and Census Bureau forecast the population would continue to grow by 4.6 per cent a year and reach 644,000 residents by 2011.
Government experts said the rise is because of an increase in imported labour flooding Macau to man its casinos and hotels and not an increase in births.
At the end of June, imported workers accounted for 98,505 of the population — an increase of more than 23,000 from the year before.
Experts said this growth is putting a strain on land, infrastructure and the electricity supply of the tiny Chinese enclave, which has a population density of 18,900 people per square kilometre, compared with 6,736 in neighbouring Hong Kong.
“It would be hard for Macau to sustain a much bigger population with its current infrastructure and land resources,” Professor Zeng Zhonglu of Macau’s Polytechnic Institute said in a report in the local media.
Macau’s casino industry was overhauled in 2003, allowing upmarket Las Vegas-owned casinos to compete for the first time with the dozen existing casinos owned by tycoon Stanley Ho’s monopoly.