China's Macau Special Administrative Region (SAR) received a total of 710,000 tourists in February, down 12.6 percent from the same 2000 period, according to the latest official statistics.

The number of visitors from Hong Kong, China's inland areas, Taiwan and Japan accounted for 52.4 percent, 26.9 percent, 14.2 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively, according to the Statistics and Census Services of the SAR government.

The decrease is blamed for the fact that the Spring Festival, China's most important traditional holiday, fell in January this year, while it was in February in the year 2000.

Macau played host to 1.6 million tourists in the first two months of this year, up 9.7 percent on an annual basis.

(Eastday.com 03/19/2001)