Lusophone exports to Macau hit record high in 2025

Exports of goods from Portuguese-speaking countries to Macau reached a new historic high in 2025, according to official data.

The value of exports from lusophone markets to the SAR totalled MOP 1.47 billion (around USD 184 million), an increase of 6.4 per cent compared with 2024, according to the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) of Macau.

This figure is also the highest since DSEC began collecting external trade data in 1998, surpassing the previous record of MOP 1.43 billion (around USD 179 million) set in 2023.

Most of Macau’s trade with Portuguese-speaking countries in 2025 came from Brazil, valued at MOP 1.17 billion (around USD 146 million), up 10.2 per cent from the previous year, consisting mainly of meat, fish and seafood.

Macau also imported goods from Portugal worth MOP 290.7 million (around USD 36 million), down 3.5 per cent from 2024, primarily clothing and accessories, meat, fish and seafood, alcoholic beverages, and pharmaceutical products.

According to official data, Portuguese-speaking countries purchased goods from Macau worth MOP 2.97 million (around USD 370 000), a drop of 39.9 per cent compared with the previous year.

Lusophone markets accounted for just 1.06 per cent of Macau’s total external trade in 2025.

This comes despite China having designated the Macau Special Administrative Region as a platform to strengthen economic and trade cooperation with Portuguese-speaking countries in 2003, and establishing the Macau Forum in the same year.

The forum includes China as well as the members of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP): Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe, Timor-Leste, and, since 2022, Equatorial Guinea.

Macau’s exports of goods to the world totalled MOP 13.9 billion (around USD 1.74 billion) in 2025, an increase of 3.2 per cent, according to DSEC.

However, exports remain far below the value of imported goods, which totalled MOP 124.8 billion (around USD 15.6 billion), a decrease of 3 per cent year on year.

Macau’s trade deficit stood at MOP 110.9 billion (around USD 13.9 billion), down 3.5 per cent from the previous year and the lowest since 2020, at the start of the Covid‑19 pandemic.