51.2 percent of the visitors from the Chinese mainland to Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) were under the Individual Visit Scheme, according to official statistics issued on Tuesday.

The figures from the Statistics and Census Service indicated that the number of visitor arrivals in the SAR totaled 1,539,534 in May 2005, representing a year-on-year increase of 16 percent.

Compared with in May last year, the number of visitors from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan increased 7.3 percent, 18.8 percent and 47.8 percent respectively, according to the statistics.

(Xinhua News Agency June 22, 2005)