The Director of the Administrative Committee of the Guangdong-Macao Intensive Cooperation Zone and the Chief Executive of Macao, Mr Ho Iat Seng, speaks at the Second Meeting of the Administrative Committee .
Major issues regarding, respectively, the implementation of the Guangdong-Macao Intensive Cooperation Zone in Hengqin, the to-do list of the zone’s Administrative Committee, and the zone’s personnel quota, were discussed in the second meeting of the zone’s Administrative Committee, held in Hengqin on Monday (6 December)
The meeting was co-chaired by the two directors of the Administrative Committee, namely the Chief Executive of the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR), Mr Ho Iat Seng, and the Governor of Guangdong Province, Mr Ma Xingrui.
Addressing the meeting, Mr Ho thanked his counterpart Mr Ma, and Guangdong Province as a whole, for support regarding the Intensive Cooperation Zone. Such support had provided the zone with a head start, Mr Ho said.
The Macao SAR Government would strive to attract investment to the Intensive Cooperation Zone, pledged Mr Ho.
The Chief Executive also noted that Macao and Guangdong had had in-depth discussion on many major issues regarding the development of the Intensive Cooperation Zone, and he was confident that future work could be rolled out more smoothly.
For his part, the Guangdong Governor said it was important to optimise the implementation of the Master Plan of the Development of the Guangdong-Macao Intensive Cooperation Zone in Hengqin, to make such implementation more methodical, strategic and forward-looking.
Mr Ma underlined that the primary goal of the Intensive Cooperation Zone was to promote Macao’s economic diversification, and that further integration between Macao and Hengqin would be facilitated with this in mind.
Before Monday’s meeting, the Chief Executive and the Guangdong Governor co-hosted the ceremony to break ground for the Customs Supervision Building serving the “second-tier” tariff area of the Guangdong-Macao Intensive Cooperation Zone in Hengqin.
The site of the customs building will cover a total area of 245,400 square metres. It is estimated it will cost about 597 million yuan, and will be completed by 30 June 2022. When ready, it will manage five “second-tier” tariff channels for seven locations in Hengqin.
After the ceremony to break ground for the customs building, Mr Ho and Mr Ma witnessed the signing of 12 key investment projects for the Intensive Cooperation Zone.
The initiatives included projects related to integrated circuits, electronic information, biomedicine, traditional Chinese medicine, the “big health” industry, and modern finance. Of the 12 projects, four are Macao-funded.
In addition, plaques were unveiled on Monday marking respectively establishment of a school, a family activity centre, a healthcare training base, and a housekeeping service-related centre, for the Intensive Cooperation Zone.
