By Zhang Jiawei MACAO, March 16 (Xinhua) -- Although competition in the Asian gaming market was heating up, Chief Executive of the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) Chui Sai On still said Tuesday that his government would continue to carry out its existing policy toward the local gaming sector, preventing it from ever expanding. Chui made the remark Tuesday while delivering his first policy address at a plenum of the Macao SAR's Legislative Assembly since he took office Dec. 20, 2009. He said in the policy address that he would fine-tune the development of the local gaming industry in terms of its size and pace, while striving to enhance the industry's competitiveness and spreading its economic effect onto other industries. He explained that the SAR government will strictly control the number of local casinos, gaming tables and slot machines, and take measures to prevent gaming operators from breaching the rules. As part of its effort to strengthen its regulation over the gaming industry, the pillar of the local economy, the Macao SAR government last month expanded the Gaming Committee, which overlooks the industry's development, from six members to eight members. The members are all top government officials from various departments. Chui also said at the press conference after presenting his policy address Tuesday afternoon that his government would stick to the policy announced by his predecessor Ho Hau Wah in 2008. According to the industry policy firstly introduced by Ho, the Macao SAR government no longer issues new gaming licenses aside from the current six ones, and halts the construction of new casinos unless it has been sanctioned by the authorities before. The Macao SAR's new lands created by reclamation will never be used for developing the gaming industry, Chui also stressed. There were currently a total of 33 casinos, and over 4,700 gaming tables in the tiny island city with a population of just over 540,000. For the whole of last year, the island city's gaming sector raked in 119.4 billion patacas (14.9 billion U.S. dollars) in gross revenues, an increase of 9.6 percent over the previous year, according to the figures from the Macao SAR's Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau. Regarding lands that have long been granted to gaming operators to develop casino projects but left lying idle for years, the chief executive clarified at the press conference that the Macao SAR government will handle the issue of idle lands in accordance with the law, and will reclaim the lands once the developers in question are found to be breaching the contracts signed with the government. He added that the government will soon release the statistics concerning these idle lands, and the government was considering building public residential buildings on the lands that might be recovered, while auditioning off the others. Hit by the global financial crisis, some large casino resort projects in Macao, including the Las Vegas Sands' casino complex on the Cotai Strip, were halted due to financing troubles. But Sands has said that it will restart the project's construction this year. In addition, Chui's policy address also included measures to fight against casino money laundering, and to raise casino goers' age requirements and to remove slot machine halls from local neighborhoods. He said the government will continue to monitor whether the six licensed gaming operators implement their internal monitoring procedures and will initiate the first-round of auditing work at these gaming companies at the end of this year. 