Chief Executive Sam Hou Fai has reaffirmed Macao’s commitment to deepening integration with national development strategies while positioning the city as an international cooperation platform, highlighting the Guangdong-Macao Intensive Cooperation Zone in Hengqin as a flagship initiative.
Speaking at a recent diplomatic reception for consuls general and representatives from nearly 50 countries and international organisations based in Macao and Hong Kong, Sam welcomed everyone to make good use of Macao’s role as a hub for global exchange. He also invited enterprises and tourists from across the world to experience the developmental vitality of Macao and the rest of China
“Macao is willing to share its development opportunities, and expand its international circle of friends, so that it can further broaden its economic cooperation,” he said. The chief executive also noted that Macao and Hengqin were part of the Greater Bay Area (GBA), which was “ready to offer the most attractive preferential policies and the best services to its global partners as infinite possibilities unfold.”
Sam highlighted Macao’s political stability, social harmony, low unemployment rate and steady economic progress. In particular, he praised the One Country, Two Systems principle as “the biggest advantage for Macao’s development” and described Hengqin as “a new demonstration” of the principle’s implementation.
[See more: Xia: Macao needs to treat Hengqin’s development as ‘its own business’]
“It has become an example of taking new high ground in fostering the construction of the [GBA], and realising the country’s high-quality opening-up to the outside world,” Sam noted.
Hengqin is an island district of Zhuhai that’s jointly administered with Macao and is home to a zone designed to attract foreign investment and high-end talent while fostering innovation in support of Macao’s broader economic diversification goals.
The chief executive also outlined a number of “iconic and impactful” projects he said would inject new impetus in Macao’s development. These included the Macao-Hengqin International Education (University) Town, an international air transport hub on the west bank of the Pearl River, a new technology research industrial park, and a number of what he called “international integrated tourism and cultural districts”.
Prior to the dinner reception, the delegation of consuls general and representatives – along with their spouses – visited the Macao Grand Prix Museum and the Handover Gifts Museum of Macao.
