The economy of China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) grew by 25 percent by real term in the year 2004, a senior economic official said Monday.

Secretary of economy and finance of the Macao SAR government Francis Tam Pak Yuen disclosed it when attending the 2005 Forum of Economic and Business Cooperation between Portugal, Guangdong Province and Macao SAR.

Tam said that the SAR has experienced an extraordinary growth period since its establishment five years ago. With the consistence and protection of the free-market economy and the practices of the Chinese principle of "one country, two systems," Macao has exerted its advantage as a "free port."

Over the past five years, Macao's gross domestic product (GDP) has been developing steadily achieving double-digit growth rate for three years in a row.

Macao's GDP growth set a new record of 25 percent in 2004, while the unemployment rate dropped to an all-time low of 4.2 percent, said Tam.

He said that Macao is making a new effort in optimizing the economic structure and properly dealing with problems that emerged during the economic growth in order to achieve a sustainable economic growth and gradually improve people's living standard.