MGM has joined major local players SJM and Galaxy Entertainment Group to announce development plans on Macau’s neighbouring Hengqin Island.

The Chief Executive Officer of MGM China, Grant Bowie, has announced that the gaming operator is to invest in a non-gaming project in Hengqin, with the plot of land in question pending approval by the Chinese authorities.

According to Chinese-language newspaper Macau Daily, Mr. Bowie said the Group’s project in Hengqin will differ from that of Shun Tak Holdings Ltd., of which executive director of MGM Pansy Ho Chiu King is managing director.

Although declining to reveal more details about MGM’s Hengqin project, Mr. Bowie told the Chinese newspaper that MGM very much values future co-operation with Hengqin, saying it would outsource some of the services of the new project to enhance regional co-operation.

In April, SJM Holdings Ltd. announced that it was investing in the Hengqin Tourism and Transportation Services Centre in the Guangdong-Macau Co-operation Industrial Park. Galaxy Entertainment Group (GEG), too, has thrown its hat in the ring announcing that it will build a hotel resort project in Hengqin in 2015, believed to revolve round a Maldives theme built in three phases. The likely completion date of the GEG Hengqin project is 2022. Meanwhile, Galaxy Phase II, in Macau, will open on 27^th May this year.

The deputy chairman of Galaxy Entertainment Group, Francis Lui Yiu Tung, has confirmed that construction of the Group’s Hengqin project will begin this year and is expected to take seven to eight years to complete, adding: “Hengqin is a place that Macau people should cherish as its future law, tax as well as culture will be similar to those in Macau. [Hengqin] will offer more opportunities for development, which young people in Macau should grab.”