The Chief Executive, Mr Chui Sai On, takes a group photo with the Macao students studying in Portugal.
During his visit to Lisbon, Portugal, the Chief Executive Chui Sai On invited Macao students studying in the country to a dinner on 13 September. Mr Chui told the students that, according to the Macao SAR Government's policy objectives and five-year development plan, talented people with multilingual ability are needed to support Macao's development as “one platform and three centres”. As it is not easy to cultivate bilingual talents, the Government values these talented people, and hopes they can return home and provide services in Macao, or in mainland China and Portuguese-speaking countries. Before the dinner, the Chief Executive exchanged views with more than a hundred Macao students studying abroad. Issues discussed included Macao’s policy on talented people who are bilingual in Chinese and Portuguese, training of legal practitioners, and Macao as a business and trade services platform between China and Portuguese-speaking countries. Regarding training of legal personnel, Mr Chui said he had come across many legal professionals, and discovered that the process of learning and practising influenced their understanding of the judicial system. For example, people learning law in Portugal would have legal opinions differing from those learning in mainland China, arising from their backgrounds differing in terms of learning and experiences. Therefore, no matter whether these law graduates will join the civil services system or work for private businesses, they still need to spend time on their long career paths and accumulate sufficient experiences to become legal experts. Some students commented on the shortage of qualified teachers to provide legal training in Macao. Mr Chui admitted that during the process of localisation of law before the Handover, the Law School of the University of Macau was not yet well established and faced a shortage of teachers and researchers. Today, the university is much better developed, and recently recruited its Dean of Law School. Hopefully it will build a quality academic team. Mr Chui hopes that the Law School of the University of Macau will foster qualified legal professionals suiting the requirements of Macao’s legal system. As Macao is now developing as “one platform and three centres”, Mr Chui hopes it will enhance its commercial and trade connections with Portuguese-speaking countries, lead mainland China enterprises to invest in these countries, and seek to develop a specialised financial industry. Officials attending the seminar also included the Chief-of-Office of the Chief Executive's Office, Ms O Lam; and the Director of the Macao Economic and Trade Office in Lisbon, Ms O Tin Lin.