Just over 83 percent of young Macao residents have said they are willing to undertake employment in Hengqin. That’s according to a new study by the Chinese Youth Advancement Association, which explored the willingness of Macao youths to integrate into Hengqin.
At a press conference reported by local media outlets on Saturday, the association announced the results of the survey, which was conducted between September and November of this year, with backing from the Macau Foundation. A total of 1,052 electronic questionnaires were collected from local respondents aged between 18 and 45.
The researchers found that over 86 percent of Macao youths expressed interest in setting up a business in Hengqin, while more than 52 percent said they maintained an open attitude when it came to residing on the island, which administratively is a district of the mainland Chinese city of Zhuhai – Macao’s immediate neighbour.
Despite these high figures, various bottlenecks are preventing Macao residents from integrating into Hengqin. At an administrative level, more than 55 percent of locals cited the long administrative process as an issue.
Other institutional challenges included the difficulty of obtaining cross-border professional certification and the fact that time spent living in Hengqin does not count towards the residency period needed to become a permanent Macao resident. For the latter, nearly 67 percent of survey takers believed this was having a negative impact.
Economic and social barriers also exist, with nearly half of participants stating that they were less inclined to settle in Hengqin due to the island’s salary and benefit gap with the SAR.
Hengqin’s lack of excellent education and medical resources was also mentioned as a barrier. Meanwhile, over 67 percent of residents said the absence of facilities in Hengqin that allow them to live the same lifestyle as they do in Macao was severely impacting their desire to settle in the city for the long term.
In order to allow for Macao youths to better integrate into Hengqin, the Chinese Youth Advancement Association offered four suggestions. One of them involved further deepening the links between the SAR and Hengqin’s systems, as well as establishing a unified inquiry platform.
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The association also called for the authorities to strengthen support for entrepreneurship through measures such as simplifying the application process for preferential policy measures.
For the third point, the organisation urged the authorities to improve Hengqin’s living environment, set up model communities imbued with Macao characteristics, and attract SAR brands and services to the mainland city.
As for the fourth recommendation, the body highlighted the need to strengthen cooperation between the two jurisdictions and regional transport links.
While the current study indicates a high willingness among local residents to work in Hengqin, a survey conducted by the Macau Economic and Livelihood Alliance earlier this year found that only 27 percent of SAR youths were open to the idea.
The figures are nonetheless an advance on the paltry results of a survey in 2015, when less than a tenth of those surveyed indicated a willingness to move to Hengqin.
