The local government said yesterday that 1,716 respondents, comprising individuals and associations, submitted their opinions during the 40-day public consultation held earlier this year on the drafting of Macau’s 3rd Five-Year Plan. These respondents raised a total of 8,230 opinions.
The Policy Research and Regional Development Bureau (DSEPDR), the public entity tasked with drafting Macau’s 3rd Five-Year Plan, made the announcement in a statement yesterday.
The public consultation ran from May 20 to June 28. The bureau yesterday published a report summarising the opinions gathered during the process, with yesterday’s statement outlining key statistics from the report.
The Macao Special Administrative Region’s (MSAR) 3rd Five-Year Plan, officially known as the 3rd Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development, covers the period between 2026 and 2030. The Macau government has underlined its commitment to aligning Macau’s third five-year socioeconomic development plan with the nation’s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030), the full version of which was published by the Central People’s Government in March this year.
After assessing the opinions gathered during the 40-day public consultation, the local government will draw up and publish the final version of Macau’s 3rd Five-Year Plan. Afterwards, the government will begin implementing the plan.
Chief Executive Sam Hou Fai told lawmakers last month that the local government was aiming to publish the final version of the plan in August and then start implementing it.
Yesterday’s statement noted that the Macau government held a total of 14 sessions to gather views and suggestions on the plan. These comprised three sessions for members of the general public, 10 sessions for representatives from various sectors of Macau’s civil society, and one session held in the Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin.
The local government had initially scheduled 11 sessions.
The statement noted that about 500 people attended the various sessions, 180 of whom spoke.
In addition to attending the sessions, individuals and associations submitted opinions through various other channels, including the consultation’s dedicated website, the Macao One Account e-government app, email, phone, and physical documents.
According to the bureau, these participation numbers represent 2.2 times the number of respondents and 2.6 times the total opinions recorded during the public consultation for the drafting of Macau’s 2nd Five-Year Plan (2021–2025).
Of the 1,716 sets of feedback, 1,191 were raised by individuals and associations during the consultation sessions and through the official channels; 277 were submitted by individuals on social media platforms and online forums, which were subsequently gathered by the bureau through web mining*; and 248 came from commentaries and articles published in news media outlets.
The statement noted that positive views accounted for 92.1 percent of the total feedback, while neutral and negative views accounted for 6.9 percent and 1.0 percent, respectively.
Regarding topics of interest, 21.6 percent of opinions focused on safeguarding and improving residents’ well-being, 16.0 percent addressed Macau’s appropriate economic diversification drive, and 13.3 percent pertained to the development of the Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin.
* Web mining is the application of data mining techniques to automatically discover, extract, and analyse information from web documents, structures, and user services. It enables organisations to uncover hidden patterns, evaluate website usage, and extract useful insights from vast amounts of online content. – Gemini
This photo taken from Small Taipa Hill earlier this year shows part of the Macau peninsula’s skyline. – Photo: Tony Wong
