New hopes with new leadership -- Young Macao SAR anticipates brighter future

BEIJING/MACAO, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- Mr. Ng, a 63-year-old cook in China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR), has been following this year's chief executive election since the beginning.

"My expectations for the new chief executive are very simple -- develop more industries, create more jobs, and improve our lives," said Ng, referring to Sam Hou Fai, who won the election for the region's top post on Sunday with an overwhelming majority vote.

An old city with a long history of Portuguese rule, the young Macao SAR, which will soon mark the 25th anniversary of its return to the motherland, bears new hopes with the new leader.

In outlining key governance focuses for the next five years, Sam, former president of Macao's Court of Final Appeal, has set the primary goal of meeting people's expectations for a better life, with comprehensively implementing the "one country, two systems" as a basic guideline.

He highlighted the need to enhance public governance capabilities and levels, accelerate moderately diversified economic development, better integrate into and serve national development, improve education, science and technology talent systems, and improve people's livelihoods.

Chui Sai Cheong, president of the Macao Chamber of Commerce, said Sam's election platform meets the practical needs of Macao in its new development, painting a promising blueprint for the next five years.

"I'm confident he will lead Macao onto a new stage on various fronts," Chui said.

ECONOMIC DIVERSIFICATION

The new chief executive election came at a time when Macao is striving to diversify its economy.

The Macao SAR government put forward the strategy for appropriate economic diversification in its policy address for 2023 to build Macao into a world tourism and leisure center and develop its priority industries of big health, modern finance, high technology, exhibition and convention, as well as culture and sports.

Jorge Valente, a member of the Chief Executive Election Committee who cast his vote on Sunday, told Xinhua that economic diversification takes center stage for Macao's future and the new chief executive designate's policy agenda is well-balanced in this regard.

In building a "world tourism and leisure center," Macao has gone to great lengths to host high-level sports events and performances. This year alone, table tennis, volleyball, basketball and golf games have filled the city's sports calendar. Performing artists from around the world also took to the stage on Macao's numerous arenas, attracting fans from afar.

Macao has hosted a series of large-scale exhibitions and conventions in recent years. It won the title of Asia's best convention city in 2023.

Official figures showed Macao recorded nearly 30 million visitor arrivals in 2023, hiking almost four times year on year. The figure recovered to over 70 percent of the pre-pandemic level in 2019.

Chin Ieng, a lecturer with the Macao University of Tourism, said cultural and sports events can effectively boost tourism, dining and other related industries, and build up Macao's city image in the long run.

In consistent science and technology pursuits, research teams in Macao's elite universities have made active contributions to the country's Mars, lunar and other space missions. The "Macao Science 1" space exploration satellites, the first such satellites jointly developed by the mainland and Macao, are expected to significantly improve China's space magnetic field exploration technologies. China also selected, for the first time, a payload specialist from Macao as candidate for the country's fourth batch of astronauts.

In 2023, the Macao SAR government followed up on around a dozen investment plans on scientific and technological industries, and supported a batch of research fruits to commercialize.

Ma Shaodan, associate director of the State Key Laboratory of Internet of Things for Smart City under the University of Macao (UM), said that the UM had developed an interdisciplinary team with international backgrounds to better achieve scientific and technological innovations.

"Our aim is to build a world-class advanced lab, in addition to commercializing our research fruits in Hengqin, and applying them in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area," Ma said, adding that the area boasts rich upstream and downstream industry resources, where scientific researches can be easily commercialized and applied.

In the first systematic industrial development plan for Macao's appropriate economic diversification from 2024 to 2028, which was released last year, the SAR government proposed to speed up developing Macao's Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and big health industry. It pledged efforts to promote research and development of TCM and commercialization of research findings as well as modernization and internationalization of the TCM industry.

Chen Xin, head of the State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine, UM, said that Macao has a long tradition of TCM, as well as elements of European herbal medicine, forming a unique medicinal culture. "The Greater Bay Area is also rich in TCM resources and its well-developed medical system provides a broad market for clinical testing and utilization of TCM," Chen added.

Macao also sped up developing its bond market, improving financial infrastructure, and promoting the bond market to be connected to the international market.

The Micro Connect Macao Financial Assets Exchange (MCEX) officially started operation in 2023, becoming the world's first Daily Revenue Obligations (DRO) financial market. The exchange allows investors to directly invest in the large number of mainland small and micro firms through DRO and generate diversified steady returns.

BETTER INTEGRATE INTO NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

At a press conference after the Electoral Affairs Commission for the Chief Executive Election announced Sam's winning, the new chief executive designate said integrating into national development is Macao's opportunity.

In integrating into national development, Sam said Macao should fully leverage the advantages of the "one country, two systems" policy, uphold national sovereignty, security and development interests as the highest principles, and actively participate in the development of the Greater Bay Area.

He highlighted efforts to advance the building of the second phase of the Guangdong-Macao In-depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin, a 106-square-km island that sits between Macao and the Chinese mainland, pledging to collaborate with national ministries and neighboring Guangdong Province to vigorously develop the zone.

In 2021, the central government unveiled a plan to boost the development of the in-depth cooperation zone in Hengqin, positioning it as a catalyst for Macao's diversified economic growth and a hub that expands the living and work space of Macao residents.

By the end of 2023, there were 11,500 Macao residents working or living in Hengqin, an annual increase of over 70 percent, according to the zone's statistics bureau.

In March this year, Hengqin started to allow most goods to be moved there tax-free from Macao. Under the new customs mechanism, tariffs will be generally lifted for goods entering Hengqin from Macao, while goods moving from Hengqin to the Chinese mainland will now be subject to import duties, if they are not eligible for added-value tax exemption.

"Hengqin has completed a key step toward fulfilling its two main goals, which are promoting the diversification of Macao's economy and creating a new home for Macao residents to live and work," said Xuan Jianguo, secretary-general of the Hengqin Institute of Innovation and Development.

This year, the central government has issued a series of policies to facilitate the flow of personnel and goods between Macao and the mainland. The country added eight more cities to the list of places eligible to issue individual travel endorsements for trips to Hong Kong and Macao, raised the duty-free shopping quota for mainland visitors to the two SARs, and allowed non-Chinese permanent residents of the two cities to apply for special travel permits to enter the mainland.

In October this year, the mainland and Macao signed an updated version of the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA), a free-trade-agreement-like arrangement established between two separate customs territories of a single sovereign state, aiming to deepen economic exchanges and cooperation between the two sides. Many of the amendments relate to emerging sectors in Macao's economic diversification plan.

Macao has also drawn upon its unique history to build up distinctive advantages as a major platform linking China and Portuguese-speaking countries (PSCs) and has actively participated in the Belt and Road Initiative.

Regarding cooperation with PSCs, Sam underscored that the new administration of the Macao SAR will further promote cooperation in areas such as trade, finance, tourism, and high technology.

In April this year, Macao hosted the 6th Ministerial Conference of the Forum for Economic and Trade Co-operation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries (Macao), also known as Forum Macao. During the conference, 20 new initiatives covering six areas were announced, including cooperation in trade and investment, human resources, and healthcare.

Since the inception of the Forum Macao over two decades ago, trade between China and PSCs has skyrocketed to 220.9 billion in 2023, a more than twenty-fold increase.

"Macao's role as a platform linking China and PSCs exemplifies how the SAR integrates into the overall national development," said Ji Xianzheng, secretary-general of the Permanent Secretariat of the Forum Macao, in an earlier interview with Xinhua.

The better the relations between China and PSCs develop, the more Macao will benefit from the dividends of national development, Ji noted.