The management and executive committees of the Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin recently held two separate consultation meetings in Macao with the city’s national political representatives.
The goal was to collect opinions and suggestions on new policies and measures designed to advance the zone’s development, according to a statement released yesterday by the executive committee. The meetings were reported by Macau Post Daily.
The 106-square-kilometre Hengqin island, part of Zhuhai, was officially inaugurated as the Cooperation Zone in September 2021. The zone’s top decision-making body, the management committee, is jointly run by Guangdong Province and the Macao Special Administrative Region.
The meeting with Macao deputies to the National People’s Congress (NPC) on Tuesday was chaired by Wong Sio Chak, Macao’s secretary for administration and justice, and Tai Kin Ip, the SAR’s financial secretary, alongside Kou Hoi In, the sole Macao member of the elite NPC Standing Committee, and Lao Ngai Leong, the head of the local NPC delegation.
On Wednesday, the meeting with Macao members of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) was chaired by Wong, Tai, Edmund Ho Hau Wah, Macao’s first chief executive and now a vice-chairman of the CPPCC National Committee, as well as four local members of the CPPCC National Committee Standing Committee. Both meetings, which involved officials from various Macao public entities, took place at the Forum Macao Complex in Sai Van.
[See more: Over 80 percent of Macao youths are open to working in Hengqin, survey finds]
During Wednesday’s session, Ho urged CPPCC members to maintain close communication with government bodies in both Macao and Hengqin, offering suggestions to help the zone achieve new breakthroughs.
The need for “smooth convergence of rules” between Macao and Hengqin was highlighted by Kou Hoi In during Tuesday’s meeting as key to achieving development. He called for an acceleration of this convergence across areas including border immigration clearance, medical care, education, social security, telecommunications, and payment systems, while enhancing coordination in industrial planning and boosting the security and fluidity of the flows of people, goods, capital, and information.
Also on Tuesday, Lao urged the cooperation zone to better respond to the needs of Macao residents and enterprises, advance key projects, enhance Macao-Hengqin integration, and foster improvements in quality and efficiency.
In his remarks at both meetings, Tai said that several large-scale projects were scheduled to commence this year to accelerate the concentration of industrial and human resources.
Wong meanwhile pledged to speed up the convergence of rules and mechanisms, and committed to thoroughly studying the opinions and suggestions raised by the local NPC deputies and CPPCC members.
