At the invitation of the Chief Executive, Mr Chui Sai On, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Portuguese Republic, Mr Augusto Santos Silva, is on a three-day visit to Macao for a Macao-Portugal Joint Committee meeting.
While in Macao, the Minister and the Chief Executive will co-chair the fifth meeting of the Macao-Portugal Joint Committee, to be held tomorrow (20 October). The meeting aims to review the long-standing relations between the two sides and explore opportunities for further cooperation in the next phase of bilateral relations.
Mr Chui will additionally hold a separate meeting with Mr Santos Silva to exchange views on issues of mutual interest.
The Macao-Portugal Joint Committee was established under the Framework Agreement of Cooperation between the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China and the Portuguese Republic, with the aim of strengthening cooperation between the two sides in a number of areas.
The fourth meeting of the Macao-Portugal Joint Committee was held in Portugal in September 2016. That meeting helped reinforce cooperation on topics such as language education and economic development. Exchanges had taken place – in the form of visits back and forth by officials of relevant departments from the two sides – since the formal 2016 meeting. This had been in order to press ahead with projects concerning mutual cooperation.
A delegation led by Mr Santos Silva, is to arrive today. Members of the delegation include: the Portuguese Ambassador to China, Mr José Augusto Duarte; the Secretary of State of Internationalization, Mr Eurico Brilhante Dias; the General Director for Foreign Policy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr Pedro Costa Pereira; and the President of the Agency for Investment and Foreign Trade of Portugal, Mr Luís Castro Henriques.