Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng will pay a working visit to Portugal, Luxembourg and Belgium from today to next Thursday, the Macau Government Information Bureau (GCS) announced yesterday.
According to a GCS statement, Ho will lead both a local government delegation and a local business delegation on his trip to Lisbon until Saturday.
The government delegation includes two of Ho’s five policy secretaries – Secretary for Economy and Finance Lei Wai Nong and Secretary for Transport and Public Works Raimundo do Rosário.
Afterwards, Ho and his government delegation will visit the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and Brussels – the capital city of the Kingdom of Belgium and headquarters of the 27-nation European Union (EU) until April 27.
The statement said that the trip aims to strengthen economic and trade ties and cooperation in tourism, education and culture with the three countries and also to promote Macau in Europe.
According to previous local media reports, the business delegation has about 40 members.
While in Lisbon, according to the statement, Ho is slated to meet with Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Prime Minister António Costa and Foreign Minister João Gomes Cravinho.
In Luxembourg, Ho will meet with Prime Minister Xavier Bettel.
Ho told lawmakers in a Q&A session last week that during the visit he would study Luxembourg’s secondary market, its bond issuing system in particular, during the visit.
In Brussels, the final stop, Ho will meet with EU officials at the supranational organisation’s headquarters, as well as Belgium’s Deputy Prime Minister Pierre-Yves Dermagne and the minister-president of the Brussels Capital-Region, Rudi Vervoort.
After the Lisbon leg of the trip, Macau’s business delegation will visit Portugal’s northern city Porto, led by Lei.
The statement said that while in Porto the delegation will visit several companies “in a bid to bolster bilateral ties in economic and trade matters.”
Meanwhile, public broadcaster TDM reported yesterday that Ho’s stay in the Portuguese capital will also include a meeting with scholarship holders from Macau, a dinner hosted by the Chinese ambassador and a meeting with the capital city’s mayor, Carlos Moedas.
Rádio Macau-TDM also said that the business delegation will a visit a string of enterprises and other entities both in Lisbon and Porto, such as Corticeira Amorim, Bial, Sovena, Hovione, Champalimaud, Luz Saúde, Quinta de Marmeleira, and Delta Cafés.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which began to hit Macau in January 2020, the overseas trip starting today is Ho’s first since he became Macau’s chief executive in December 2019.
Macau was a Chinese territory under temporary Portuguese administration until midnight on December 19, 1999. Macau’s return to the motherland on the next day meant that China finally resumed its exercise of sovereignty over Macau. Lisbon had unilaterally relinquished its claim of sovereignty over Macau back in 1974, following its anti-colonial Carnation Revolution.
Unlike Hong Kong’s quarrelsome reversion from British to Chinese rule in 1997, Macau’s transfer from Portuguese to Chinese administration 2 ½ years later was fairly smooth.
