By Tony Lai
Crouching tigers, hidden flies
From drastic decline to gradual recovery, triggered by an anti- corruption campaign in Mainland China in the first five-year reign of President Xi Jinping, the local gaming industry remains upbeat about the future amid the ongoing drive against graft in Mr. Xi’s next five-year term
I 18 NOVEMBER 2017
n his opening remarks as head of the Chinese Communist Party in November 2012, President Xi Jinping clearly stated a core priority for his first five-year rule. “Our party faces many severe challenges, and there are also many pressing
problems within the party that need to be resolved, particularly corruption,” he said at the time. “We must make every effort to solve these problems.” Little was it known at the time the magnitude his anti-corruption drive would assume – and even fewer people could have expected its tremendous impact upon the sole gambling enclave on Chinese soil, leading to declines in Macau’s gaming revenue and heightened scrutiny. With the clamping down on graft in the second five-year reign of Mr. Xi ongoing, local casinos remain vulnerable to any changes in Beijing’s policies and stance, although they may have seen the worst.
The nation’s top disciplinary body, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), announced last month that roughly 1.34 million low ranking party officials have been punished since November 2012, mostly related to corruption. In the past five years, 35 members of the central committee of the Communist Party – a body comprising top party officials – have been disciplined, as many as those between 1949 and 2012. This high profile, far-reaching war on graft – which some political observers describe as the Chinese President’s purge of opponents within the party – is a key reason for the collapse of the Macau gaming industry. “In my 45 years of experience, I’ve never seen
anything like this before,” said Steve Wynn, Chairman and Chief Executive of Wynn Resorts Ltd., the parent company of local gaming operator Wynn Macau Ltd.,
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