MACAO, March 6 (Xinhua) -- China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) government reaped 1.8 billion US dollars from taxing the gaming industry last year.

    According to figures released by the Macao Financial Services Bureau Sunday, the gaming industry earned 36.8 billion patacas (4.6 billion US dollars) in gross revenue last year contributing 14.7 billion patacas (1.8 billion US dollars) to the government's tax coffer.

    As the only place in China where gambling is legal, the SAR has imposed a 35 percent of tax on the gaming industry in addition to another few percentage points of the industry's revenue taxed in mandatory donations to the Macao Foundation. The sector contributes nearly 70 percent of the SAR government's tax income.

    The SAR government logged a fiscal surplus of 6.2 billion patacas (775 million US dollars) in 2004.

    With two casinos opened with American and Hong Kong investment in Macao last year, the competition on the gaming sector has loomed, while the government's tax income has surged with the increased number and revenue of casinos.

    The sector has sustained the momentum since the beginning of this year. The government taxed 1.3 billion patacas (163 million US dollars) from the sector in January, up 38.4 percent from the same period of last year. Enditem