File photo: CGTN

MACAO, Sept. 13 (Xinhua) -- The annual income from gaming activity in Macao's gaming industry rose by 13.6 percent to 302.86 billion patacas (about 37.58 billion U.S. dollars) in 2018, the special administrative region's statistic service said here on Friday.

The latest report from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) showed that the total revenue of the gaming sector increased by 13.7 percent year-on-year to 304.71 billion patacas (about 37.81 billion dollars) in 2018.

The DSEC report added that the revenue from food and beverage (541 million patacas or 67 million dollars) dropped by 4.6 percent. Interest income leapt by 258.3 percent year-on-year to 526 million patacas (about 65 million dollars), due to an upsurge in deposits and loans granted by enterprises.

Total expenditure of the gaming sector amounted to 127.80 billion patacas (about 15.86 billion dollars), up by 11.2 percent year-on-year. Operating expenses increased by 14.0 percent year-on-year to 31.84 billion patacas (about 3.95 billion dollars).

The gross value added that measures the sectoral contribution to the economy grew by 13.6 percent year-on-year to 203.38 billion patacas (about 25.23 billion dollars), the highest value since 2014.

The gross surplus of the sector amounted to 181.01 billion patacas (about 22.46 billion dollars), an increase of 14.8 percent year-on-year.

The gross surplus ratio went up by 0.6 percentage points to 59.5 percent, whereas gross surplus and expenditure ratio rose by 3.8 percentage points to 147.0 percent.