Indeed, with the high degree of openness, Macao’s economy and finance are susceptible to external shocks and volatilities of global financial markets.
Over the last twenty five years, Macao’s financial sector in its development process experienced challenges one after another, for example, currency devaluation storms triggered by the change in floating exchange regime for the Thai baht in 1997; global economic slowdown driven by tech-bubble burst in 2000; SARS outbreak in neighbouring jurisdictions in 2003; and US-subprime-led global financial crisis which started in 2007.