Macau’s Social Security Fund (SSF) investments returned to the black last year with an average return of 8.82% after a 7.37% loss in 2022 as global markets improved, inflation began to slow, and the US avoided a recession.
The SSF’s global investment portfolio earned 5.4 billion patacas (US$672 million), bouncing back from 7.69 billion patacas of losses in 2022, according to its annual report published on August 26.
The portfolio accounts for 41.5% of the fund’s 90 billion patacas of assets.
“The global financial market was generally improving in 2023. The widely expected US economic decline eventually didn’t happen,” the report notes.
“Also, inflation in Europe, the US and other countries has been easing. Markets expect that the interest rate hike cycle is coming to an end. These positive factors have led to satisfactory performances for global stock and bond markets.”
Bank deposits, which represent 58.5% of the SSF’s assets, earned the fund 2.01 billion patacas last year, up from 637 million patacas in 2022.
The SSF is a mandatory fund introduced in 1990 to provide financial aid for the poor, the old, the terminally ill, the unemployed and the disabled. Its total investment income over the last five years was 18.9 billion patacas, or an annualised return of 4.49%.