2019 Summit on Chinese Central SOEs Supporting Macao as Co-operation Platform between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries is held in Macao today (16 Oct)
Organised by the Macao Special Administrative Region Government and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC), coordinated by the Secretariat for Economy and Finance of Macao SAR, supported by the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in Macao SAR, the 2019 Summit on Chinese Central SOEs Supporting Macao as Co-operation Platform between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries was held today (16 Oct) in Macao. More than 400 representatives from Central Government’s ministries and departments, state-owned enterprises, Portuguese-speaking countries enterprises, Macao companies and commercial associations attended the summit. A total of 11 agreements on co-operation in infrastructure, research and talent training were signed among departments and organisations from Mainland China, Portuguese-speaking countries (PSC) and Macao.
Chief Executive of Macao SAR Chui Sai On, Secretary of the SASAC Party Committee cum Chairman of SASAC Hao Peng, Director-General of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in the Macao SAR Fu Ziying, Minister of Industry, Trade & Energy of Cape Verde Alexandre Monteiro, Executive Vice President of China Development Bank Liu Jin respectively delivered addresses and keynote speeches at the summit.
In his speech, Chui Sai On said that the Macao SAR Government attached importance to the building of organic connection between the China-PSC platform and China’s major strategies in the past decade, by reinforcing the top-down design, enhancing the use of resources, carrying out concrete measures and striving to make progress in constructing the China-PSC platform. He also pointed out that the unique advantages and attractiveness of the positioning of Macao’s China-PSC platform will become increasingly apparent, along with the deepening development of the “Belt and Road” Initiative and the official launch of the Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The Macao city is now giving full play to the multi-lateral economic co-operation mechanism of the Forum for Economic and Trade Co-operation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries (Macao), while pragmatically carrying out the Strategic Plans for Economic and Trade Co-operation proposed in the past editions at the same time. The city is also constantly nurturing the economic co-operation and exchange between Mainland China, Macao and Portuguese-speaking countries by making good use of the Permanent Secretariat of Forum for Economic and Trade Co-operation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries and the training centre. In addition, with the coordination support and guidance of the Committee for Development of the Commercial and Trade Cooperation Service Platform between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries, Macao keeps enhancing the use of its quality resources in economic, cultural, tourism and educational domains, improving the city’s tax incentive mechanism, human resources training and other motivation measures, studying into launching more supporting policies, maximising the efficacy of the China-PSC platform, in an effort to achieve common development of Mainland China, Macao and Portuguese-speaking countries.
According to Hao Peng, after the first Summit on Chinese Central SOEs Supporting Macao as Co-operation Platform between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries was hosted in 2017, state-owned enterprises have been comprehensively deepening the extensive collaboration with Portuguese-speaking countries in terms of energy resources, investment, infrastructure and more areas, with Macao as an access point. Over the past two years, 51 co-operation projects were initiated, involving an investment amount of Renminbi 8.8 billion and marking an increase of 15% compared to the data recorded before the first summit was held. Such growth indicates that the state-owned enterprises will fully utilise Macao’s China-PSC platform to deepen and reach co-operations with “Belt and Road” countries and regions; make good use of Macao’s featured industries’ competitiveness to intensify and build new collaborations in the development the core technology engine of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area; give full play to the upper hand of state-owned enterprises and enhance Macao’s long-term prosperity and stability with fortified and new co-operation.
Fu Ziying mentioned in his address that the China-PSC platform is a significant bridge for Macao to demonstrate its competitive edges and strengthen international economic and trade co-operation. It is also an important stage for Mainland China, Macao and Portuguese-speaking countries to jointly construct the “Belt and Road”, a crucial leverage for Macao to integrate itself in the country’s momentum and foster its moderate diversification of economic development. State-owned enterprises are undoubtedly the cornerstones for the economic collaboration between China and Portuguese-speaking countries and the construction of China-PSC platform. He also put forward three suggestions: state-owned enterprises should maximise the influence of their own advantages and put in more resources; Macao enterprises should work closely with state-owned enterprises and be bold to grow internationally and make the most of such collaboration; Portuguese-speaking countries should be prepared for deepening international economic co-operation by creating better business environment and quality commercial conditions.
In his speech Alexandre Monteiro expressed his hope to intensify the collaboration in trade and energy resources between Mainland China and Cape Verde by utilising Macao’s China-PSC platform. Planning to build a maritime economic co-operation zone in the future, Cape Verde aims to become China’s strategic co-operation partner in Southern Africa and Central Pacific, and Macao’s important partner.
According to Liu Jin, China Development Bank will give full play to its competitiveness to provide multi-faceted support for state-owned enterprises to join the development of Macao’s China-PSC platform and the building of new grounds of bi-lateral opening up. It will also make good use of the advantages arising from the settlement of China-Portuguese Speaking Countries Cooperation and Development Fund in Macao, effectively utilise the financing resources of the Fund and Macao’s China-PSC platform, in order to create new collaboration model, nurture investment co-operation between China’s companies and their counterparts in Portuguese-speaking countries, motivate these companies to take part in the development of the “Belt and Road” Initiative and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
The theme of the summit was “Explore New Opportunities in the New Era of Co-operation”. At the opening ceremony, three discussion sessions were held, namely “Central Enterprises ‘+Macao’ Collaboration for Highly Effective Participation in Infrastructure Development in PSCs and ‘Belt and Road’ Countries”, “Harness Macao’s Featured Finance to Support Central Enterprises’ Growth in PSCs” and “Craft the GBA Innovation Engine with Organic Combination of Macao’s and Central Enterprises’ Competitive Edges”, where participants actively share their insights into the topics.
