The Chief Executive, Mr Chui Sai On, said today he was happy to see that Macao has enhanced its sustainable comprehensive strength maintained social stability and improved the overall quality of life of its people. And thanks to the support of the Central People's Government and the joint efforts of the Government and the people of Macao, the SAR has achieved considerable results by adopting a pro-active and pragmatic approach. Yet, there is still room for improvement, Mr Chui said, as he gave a review of the work of the third-term government in the last five years. He said the government had encountered numerous challenges and opportunities, but has achieved the expected results and met its goals in all aspects of administration. Mr Chui was speaking at today's plenary meeting of the Legislative Assembly where he reviewed the Government's achievements in the last five years of the third-term government, and presented the budget for the fiscal year 2015. Firstly, Mr Chui emphasised that the Government has made its best effort to establish long-term mechanisms for social security, healthcare, education, housing and manpower development, which were closely related to people's livelihood and aimed at pursuing social wellbeing. The long-term mechanism for social security is composed of the Social Security Fund, financial assistance and social welfare. The Government adopted a multi-faceted and multi-layered model to optimise the social security network for maintaining the basic quality of life of local residents. The Government also implemented the healthcare policy prioritising disease prevention, establish the long-term mechanism for healthcare through the primary healthcare networks, specialist medical services, and public health and disease prevention and control measures. Through the supply of public housing rental units, Home Ownership Scheme units and private residential units, the housing policy with the aim to help all residents to buy their homes was progressively implemented. The Government also strived to uphold the principle of "letting Macao thrive through education" by developing component systems and increasing investment to construct a network that encompasses education for all, connecting the domains of non-tertiary education, tertiary education, vocational and technical education, special education, continuing education and lifelong learning, with the aim of helping the people strengthen their competitiveness and improve the overall quality of local human resources. Based on the principle of "building Macao with talented individuals", the Government developed education as an important approach to cultivate talents, putting the priority on fostering local capable personnel needed for economic and societal development. Mr Chui said it was the Government's priority to promote and facilitate adequate economic diversification. To achieve the goal of sustainable development, the Government strived to maintain steady and healthy growth of Macao's economy, and strengthen Macao's comprehensive competitiveness. During the past five years, Macao has managed to maintain stable growth under the complicated and ever-changing global economic and financial environment. The Government continued to step up its efforts in monitoring and regulating the gaming industry to ensure its healthy development, to diversify into other industries reinforcing non-gaming elements to sharpen its competitiveness. Further efforts were also made to promote the growth of other industries such as convention and exhibition, cultural and creative, Chinese medicine, information technology and logistics. With the aim of establishing Macao as a world tourism and leisure centre, the Government has made tremendous efforts in exploring international tourist sources, promoting quality tours, conventions and exhibitions, and comprehensive travel plans. Through regional tourism collaboration, multi-destination tours were developed. Meanwhile, the Government also began to formulate its general plan for tourism development and set its mid-term and long-term goals for Macao's tourism development. The Government would spare no effort to support small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME) on business development through provision of financial aid and optimisation of business environment and human resources. Besides improving business operations of the SMEs, the Government also emphasised on protecting the rights of local employees. The Chief Executive also said Macao has successfully played its unique role as a service platform through enhanced regional cooperation and thus strengthened its attractiveness as a world tourism and leisure centre. The Government would continue to perfect the mechanism for regional co-operation, deepen and widen the scope of co-operation, to breakthrough existing limitations to achieve sustainable development, adequate economic diversification and betterment of social wellbeing in the long run. During the past five years, Macao pro-actively involved itself in the integrated development of the region, developed ideas for co-operation, and built a quality living environment for people's wellbeing. The implementation of Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) and its supplementary protocols have successfully facilitated integration between Macao and cities on in the mainland. The Government achieved success in organising the ministerial meeting for two editions of the Forum for Economic and Trade Co-operation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries, establishing itself as an economic and trade services platform, and giving full play to its function as a platform between China and the Portuguese-speaking countries. Mr Chui re-iterated that it was a common wish of the people of Macao to have a comfortable home. Over the past five years, the Government has made its best efforts to help build Macao into a liveable city with modern infrastructures, enriched living environment and diverse cultural essence. To achieve this, the Government strengthened land administration and urban development, promoted conservation and revitalised historical buildings, and made appropriate arrangements to support the future implementation of Macao's urban planning as a whole and in detail. Over the years, the Government has been working hard on issues related to public transport, cross-boundary connectivity, environmental protection, sewers and flooding problems. It has also made improvements in municipal facilitates and enhancement in ensuring food safety. The Government also strived to maintain public order, strengthened the police force through application of advanced technologies, and build a safe, healthy and inclusive city. The Chief Executive also said the Government would continue to uphold its administrative principles of "putting people first" and "scientific decision-making" to implement public administration reform and steady development of constitutional democratic reforms. During the past five years, the Government took the initiative to collect public opinion, build up social consensus, and facilitated all consultative bodies to give full play to their functions. It also set up the Policy Research Centre to enhance policy research, established a press spokesperson system, respected and protected freedom of the press and publication, as well as formulated the Standard Guidelines for Public Policy Consultation with the aim to optimise the policy consultation system of Macao. Based on the research by relevant departments and academic institutions, the Government has established a management system of its performance, implemented performance assessment for department heads, and established standards and procedures for assessments. The Government also implemented a quarterly reporting mechanism to reflect the progress of policy execution at department level to ensure government policies and measures are properly implemented and enhance the administrative capability and credibility of the Government. Mr Chui concluded that the third term Government has inherited the fruitful results achieved in the 10 years after the re-unification of Macao with the motherland. The Government will uphold the principle of rule according to law, promote constitutional developments, manifest judicial independence, and safeguard the core value of the spirit of the rule of law. The Government will persistently implement the Basic Law of Macao and unify people from all walks of life to ensure long-term stability and sustainability of Macao. The Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China Work Report Summary of Fiscal Year 2014, published in Chinese and Portuguese, are now available for distribution to the public at all technical support offices of the Government, the Government Information Bureau, the Government Printer, the Public Information Centre, the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau, the Macao Central Library and the Post Office. The Chief Executive will deliver his Policy Address for the Fiscal Year 2015 in the first quarter of the coming year.
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