Macau's currency, the pataca, is pegged to the Hong Kong dollar and remains stable. The territory managed to avoid high inflation or economic recession during last
|Trade (expressed in billions of US$): Macau|
|SOURCE: International Monetary Fund. International Financial Statistics Yearbook 1999.|
|Exchange rates: Macau|
|patacas (MOP) per US$1|
|Note: Linked to the Hong Kong dollar at the rate of 1.03 patacas per Hong Kong dollar.|
|SOURCE: CIA World Factbook 2001 [ONLINE].|
2 decades, although the Asian financial crisis of 1997 did hurt its economy. There was an economic slow-down in 1997 and 1998, affecting all sectors and bringing a small rise in inflation. However, in 1999 and 2000 the economy overcame these difficulties and began to grow again. One of the unique features of Macau's economy was that in 1998 it experienced deflation of 4 percent.
Due to the regional economic downturn, the value of the Macau patacas declined slightly against the U.S. dollar from 7.962 in 1996 to 8.1 in January 2000.