MACAO - The relative importance of the secondary sector to total Gross Value Added in China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) fell from 7.8 percent in 2015 to 6.6 percent in 2016, the SAR statistics department said on Wednesday.

The drop was mainly due to a decrease in the share of construction, information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) said.

Meanwhile, the relative importance of the tertiary sector rose from 92.2 percent in 2015 to 93.4 percent in 2016, in which the share of gaming and junket activities decreased by 0.9 percentage points year-on-year to 47.2 percent, and that of non-gaming services increased by 2.0 percentage points to 46.2 percent.

Though the Gross Value Added of all economic activities in Macao SAR registered nil growth in real terms in 2016, it was a positive sign after declining by 21.1 percent year-on-year in 2015.

The improvement was underpinned by better business conditions of gaming and junket activities, together with satisfactory performance of some service industries such as financial activities, hotels and similar activities, the DSEC said.